


past forged boundaries

by catpoop



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Childhood Friends, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, yut lung-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-08-07 18:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16413449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catpoop/pseuds/catpoop
Summary: At age six, Yut-Lung takes the risk of escaping the oppressive Lee mansion in a bid for freedom. He stumbles across a restaurant - oneChang Dai.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy lets see where this multichap will take us  
> May have relationships in the future but for now its all gen  
> note: no regular update schedule bc the muse is a finicky awful creature but yeah hope yall enjoy
> 
> thank u to morrigan on discord for beta-ing the first chapter!

The needle burns a sharp brand down the centre of his palm as Yut-Lung’s feet strike the pavement, each step juddering up his legs as he desperately flees – to anywhere. The heavy feeling in his chest isn’t guilt – he can’t possibly feel bad for only paralysing a guard after seeing what they did to _her_ , but terror. He tells himself he will never disobey his brothers again after this stunt, but the urge to run and run until he never has to address their existence grows stronger with every second.

The streets of Chinatown are busy with people, and no one pays him a second glance. That is, until the pain in his lungs reaches unbearable levels and the stitch in his side burns something fierce, and he tumbles to a messy halt to choke down desperate gasps of air. He feels like his lunch is about to come back up.

“You alright, girlie?”

He doesn’t _feel_ alright. “O-Okay.”

“You sure about that?” There’s a lanky-looking kid talking to him, Yut-Lung realises as his vision clears up, nursing his soft drink outside a storefront and peering curiously at him. “What’re you running from?”

At that, Yut-Lung darts a nervous look back the way he came, as if he would see his brothers and their assorted bodyguards elbowing their way through the crowd. “Nothing.”

“You wanna come inside? Ma always said I gotta help damsels in destresses?” The kid puffs out his chest and Yut-Lung would scowl if he didn’t just notice the tear tracks and messy dribble of snot smeared across his face. He hastily wipes at his face.

“Fine.” He’s out of energy to keep running, if he even knew where he was sprinting towards. Far enough to throw himself into the Hudson?

Yut-Lung follows the older boy into the store – a restaurant, judging by its crowded tables and chairs and rich smell of grease wafting from further in. He eyes the items on the menu in interest – common slop, as his brothers would put it.

“MA!” The kid screams, not waiting for an answering reply. “Ma! I found some kid outside I think she’s dying!” Some of the patrons in the shop turn to look at him, but most stay engrossed in their food.

“I’m a boy,” Yut-Lung finally speaks up, quietly smug when he sees the other kid turn pale.

“Ma! _He’s_ dying!” He then hisses, in a quieter voice, “What’s with the hair?”

Yut-Lung tugs at his shoulder-length hair, currently gathered into a messy ponytail. “Nothing’s wrong with my hair. In fact… what’s wrong with yours?”

He smirks when the kid reflexively slaps a hand over the strange patch of close-cropped hair on his right temple. “Got into an accident, is all! None of your business.”

They’re interrupted by a third voice. “Shorter, what did I tell you about picking on kids half your size?” The woman that approaches them radiates an aura of motherly benevolence, but Shorter lets out a terrified squeak.

“It wasn’t _me_ this time! Anyways, I just saw him had a nasty fall outside. Didn’t push him, I swear!” He adds, when his mother makes a knowing expression.

She tuts and turns to Yut-Lung. “Are you okay, kid? You definitely don’t look like you’re dying.” She raises an eyebrow at Shorter, who waves his hands around in lieu of explanation.

“I’m okay, thank you.” He’s no longer panting as hard, and save the unrelenting fear in his heart, Yut-Lung likes to think he’s doing… alright.

“Then did you need any help getting home?”

Yut-Lung abruptly shakes his head. “No! U-Uh, I mean, can I stay here?”

She gives him a strange look. “The restaurant closes at ten, but sure. Shorter, can you come here for a moment?”

Yut-Lung watches, frozen, as the two of them disappear out a back door. He isn’t sure if he should run away or stay for long enough to make good on his previous request. The Shorter kid seemed alright, despite the initial misunderstanding, and he desperately hopes that he’ll return.

Thankfully, Shorter does return, after a nervous few minutes or so of waiting. Yut-Lung has already memorised the nearest family’s dimsum order.

“Hey!”

“Oh, hi. What was that about?”

Shorter grins sheepishly. “Nothing. Ma just wanted to know if I’d kidnapped you from some royal family for rewards.”

“Huh?”

“Your – uh – clothes, y’know?”

Yut-Lung self-consciously plucks at his embroidered shirt. “They’re not weird, are they?”

“They’re _kinda_ weird.” Shorter, in comparison, is wearing a raggy t-shirt with some kind of faded robot printed on it.

“Oh.”

“Anyways. Didja want something to drink? Since you’re sticking around for a bit.” Shorter walks over to a spare table in the corner and Yut-Lung follows, taking a seat.

“Um. Sure?”

“OK, I’ll just –” Yut-Lung watches in interest as Shorter grabs a piece of paper from the counter, messily scrawls something and disappears into the kitchen for a moment before re-emerging with a wide grin. “There! I put it on the top of the pile so we’ll get ours first.”

“What did you write down?”

“Two milk teas. And the sweet kind, too.”

Yut-Lung nods in interest.

“Soo…” Shorter begins after a third glance at the counter to see if their tea is ready in the few seconds that have passed, “What’s your name? And what’s with that running business earlier? You bein’ chased by the government?”

“I-I’m Lee –” He clamps his mouth shut when he suddenly realises that _maybe_ it isn’t the best of ideas to reveal his full name, not when his brothers might come knocking door to door to track him down.

“Lee, huh? You by any chance related to the Lees that run Chinatown?”

Yut-Lung mutely shakes his head.

“Phew!” Shorter chuckles, “That’s good – I wouldn’t want to be accused of anything, you know how they are.”

He’s not that sure what Shorter is referring to, but Yut-Lung has seen enough of his brothers to develop a passionate loathing for them all. He nods in agreement.

Just then, they’re interrupted by a waitress stepping out of the side door, carrying two tall drinks on a tray. She barely has a second to locate the correct table when Shorter starts waving and hooting.

“Hey! Over here!”

She approaches with a peeved expression. “ _Shorter_. I knew that handwriting looked dodgy.”

“Just give us our drinks, lady!”

She sets them down, but not without a roll of her eyes. “You think your Ma and Pa are okay with you constantly nabbing food from the kitchens?”

Shorter belligerently sucks at his milk tea. “Yeah…? Don’t tell them, though!”

In lieu of a reply, she lightly thwacks him over the head with her tray before leaving. Shorter sheepishly rubs his head.

“Not my fault they showed me how the orders and stuff worked…” Shorter mumbles, before reaching for the second, untouched, drink and pushing it towards Yut-Lung. “Here. On the house.”

“Thank you.” Yut-Lung reaches for the glass with both hands, and the forgotten needle he had been tightly clutching in one palm clatters to the tabletop. He stiffens, startled.

“What’s that?” Shorter leans across the table to take a closer look before Yut-Lung hurriedly swipes the small implement off the laminated tabletop and stuffs it into a pocket at random. “An acupuncture needle?”

“Nothing!” Yut-Lung grasps at his tea, fingers slipping a little in the condensation, and tries to take as casual a sip as possible. 

Shorter still looks suspicious, before his expression morphs into a knowing grin. “So not running from the government but running from the _acupuncturist_?” He laughs loudly. “Careful they don’t stick you full of needles for stealing!”

Yut-Lung stays silent, instead taking another sip of the milk tea and enjoying the creamy richness on his tongue. Better than most herbal teas. The stool he’s seated on has a wobbly leg, and Yut-Lung kicks his feet back and forth as the seat wobbles beneath him.

Apparently satisfied with his own explanation, Shorter continues to loudly and enthusiastically down his tea, needle already forgotten.

“Do you have school to go to?” Yut-Lung asks after a moment of silence, punctuated only by loud slurping. It _is_ a weekday, after all, and Yut-Lung’s own guilt at pulling a fast one on the family’s guards (probably still unconscious) after a stifling morning of lessons still thrums treacle-heavy under his skin.

“Nah.” Shorter brusquely shakes his head. “Chan – he’s one of the guys in charge of the kids – sometimes does school lessons and stuff but I always get too lazy to go.” He laughs, “But like, I swear half the older guys can’t read to save their own asses so I’m doing fine!”

“What guys?” Yut-Lung asks curiously.

“Y’know, the guys who run the place! Actually –” Shorter adds with a frown, “maybe not _them_. All the ones doing important stuff know their shit and Uncle’s always nagging me to go to class.” He lets out an annoyed huff.

Yut-Lung nods sagely, despite not fully understanding Shorter’s little rant. “Class is the worst.”

“Yeah – I’d rather help Ma wash veggies all day than go. _Even_ when she’s all on my case about the proper way of washing things? Like, you’d think you just stick them under the tap and _done_.

Yut-Lung nods again, distracted. He misses his mother… and he wants to go home, but there’s nothing back at the mansion waiting for him. He sniffles quietly and rubs at his eyes, and Shorter is observant enough to stop halfway through his long-suffering rant.

“You okay?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Do you wanna, like, call your mum over to pick you up?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay then…” Shorter still looks a tad concerned as he polishes off the last of his tea. “So what are you gonna do here, anyway? Just enjoy the free drinks?” He nods at the remaining half-glass of Yut-Lung’s milk tea.

“Um – I can pay for it?” Yut-Lung awkwardly fiddles with the straw.

“Oh, nah! On the house, right?” Shorter waves a flippant hand. “Anyways, once you’re done do you wanna head over to Baxter with me? Heard something’s going down over there later this afternoon. And like, this place gets real stuffy real fast.” He jerks his head at a nearby table, where several loud men are currently hooting over something.

Nearly as loud as Shorter himself, Yut-Lung thinks, but he doesn’t say anything. “What’s Baxter?”

“Baxter Street? Y’know, a walk away?”

Yut-Lung shrugs. “Okay.” He hopes it’s not on the way to where the family mansion is. “We can go now if you want,” he suggests a moment later, when the older boy starts getting visibly restless. The milk tea was good, but not so that he _has_ to finish it. He pushes the glass away as Shorter grins.

“Oh, for reals, you wanna?” He excitedly pushes his stool away from the table, standing up, and calls to a lady by the counter, “Yo, Nadia! I’m heading out for a bit so like, if I go missing you know why!” His yelling doesn’t exactly cut through the chatter, but she seems to hear him regardless.

She looks unimpressed. “Just… stay away from the guns, okay? Or I’ll tell Ma and she’ll ground you til you’re old and dead.”

Shorter sticks his tongue out and blows a loud raspberry before turning to head to the door. “C’mon,” he gestures at Yut-Lung.

“Who was that?” Yut-Lung asks curiously when they’re out on the street. Standing up, the vast height difference between them is all the more pronounced, and he has to tilt his head back to see Shorter’s response.

“Big sis. She’s like, ancient and always a menace.” Shorter juts his bottom lip out. 

“But you’re ancient too,” Yut-Lung chimes in.

“ _Hey!_ I’m only eleven, kiddo. She’s like, super old. _Sixteen_. Anyways –” Shorter continues, still annoyed, “once, she told Ma about _this_ even though like, all the guys carry one.”

He pulls out a dagger from somewhere on his belt in one swift movement and Yut-Lung gapes.

“Whoa!”

“Cool, right?” The weapon is simple-looking, with sleek blade and plain handle, but Yut-Lung’s eyes excitedly track over the knife for a solid few moments, absorbing its every detail, until Shorter tucks it away again.

“Why do you need one?” Yut-Lung has a needle on him _somewhere_ (he hopes it hasn’t fallen out), but he’s never regularly carried a sharp implement around before. Maybe he should follow Shorter’s initiative…

“Weell…” He makes a thoughtful noise, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand since you’re just a baby, but –”

“I’m not a baby!” Yut-Lung chirps indignantly, and Shorter distractedly pats his head before continuing.

“ _But_ , you know how the streets are dangerous an’ all? So sometimes you gotta be ready to stab someone all the time. Or just, uh, whenever you feel like throwing knives at things?”

Yut-Lung hopes he doesn’t get stabbed on his first unsupervised outing in Chinatown. He wonders how his brothers would react.

“Do I need one?”

“Nah.”

“Oh, okay.”

Shorter hums. “At least, not if you’re not part of one the gangs. You’re not, right?”

Yut-Lung shakes his head. He knows the Lee family is both big and important, but no one’s ever requested he carry a weapon on him. His brothers probably wouldn’t trust him with one…

“Okay – then this can be like, baby’s first street fight?” Shorter looks smug as Yut-Lung bounces angrily on his toes.

“I’m _not_! I’m nearly seven!”

Shorter cackles gleefully as Yut-Lung trips over a loose brick in the sidewalk in his effort to maintain a steady glare. “Watch it, kiddo.”

“Hmph.”

 

They soon arrive at their destination, down a small path branching off the pavement that leads them to a concrete expanse where a crowd has already formed.

“Hey, no one said they’d already be starting…” Shorter mutters as they walk closer. Yut-Lung darts a distracted look at a nearby playground but stays close to Shorter’s side – he wouldn’t want to get lost. Not to mention, much of the crowd is made up of intimidating-looking adults taller even than Shorter.

Yut-Lung fights back the urge to clutch at Shorter’s sleeve like an infant as the older boy weaves through the crowd, apparently searching for someone. He soon stops in front of a small group of other kids, some of whom give Yut-Lung strange looks.

The tallest, in a frayed denim jacket, greets Shorter with a cuff to the head. “Hey! Why’re you only here now? And who’s this?”

“ _Cool it_ , Benny – no one told me we were getting started already! And this is Lee, I found him off the street.”

Yut-Lung nods awkwardly when everyone turns to look at him. “Kinda scrawny, isn’t he?”

“You were pretty skinny yourself too, Benny-boy.” Shorter grins.

“Fair.”

Thankfully, not all of the other kids are as tall as Shorter and Benny, and Yut-Lung peers interestedly at the other boys probably closer to him in age. No one seems interested in striking up a conversation with him though, so he quietly stands beside Shorter as he jokes around with the others.

“What’s happening?” Yut-Lung asks when he spots a lull in the conversation.

“Oh, just two of the guys tussling it out over something stupid. Fun to watch, though.”

Yut-Lung just nods. Whatever _this_ is is infinitely better than being stuck at home and in stifling discomfort, and he is soon distracted from thoughts of home as the boys start elbowing their way through the crowd to somewhere where they can actually see what’s happening at the centre of the whole thing. His eyes widen at the sight of the two heavily tattooed men at the centre of the crowd, staring each other down with an aggression that sends a shiver down Yut-Lung’s spine.

“No knives today,” Shorter casually mentions.

“Are they going to kill each other?” Yut-Lung asks, wide-eyed.

“Over something like this? Nah!” Shorter laughs. “This is just to see who’s the bigger man.”

The fight starts without warning, when one man lunges with what Yut-Lung can only describe as murderous intent. He swallows nervously, but Shorter beside him looks perfectly at ease. Yut-Lung turns back to the fight.

The two have started throwing haphazard punches, nothing like the smooth martial arts movements he’s seen his brothers execute. Around him, the crowd swells with noise, each kick and dodge and near-miss met with loud encouragement and swearing.

“Get’im, Mak!”  
“Fuck him up!”

Yut-Lung imperceptibly presses himself closer to Shorter’s side, the older boy entirely focused on the action in front of them. The crowd is stifling in its excitement, and Yut-Lung feels a little relieved when one man goes down with a brutal uppercut and a winner is soon declared.

“Damn,” Shorter groans while the crowd begins to disperse, “I thought Joe had it in the bag for _sure_.” He looks down at Yut-Lung. “How was that, huh?”

Yut-Lung raises his shoulders an inch. “It was okay.”

“You’re not one for fighting, are ya?” Shorter asks shrewdly.

He hesitates. “…Not really?”

“Fair ‘nough. Then just don’t do anything stupid like those two and you should be safe.”

“Have you gotten into any fights?”

Shorter grins sheepishly. “Not anything big, just with the kids y’know? Like, I’d be dead meat before I even landed a hit on Mak or thems.”

The two men had been scarily tall – maybe even as tall as his eldest brother. Yut-Lung shudders to think how unfair a fight that would be. “He seems scary.”

“Oh nah, he’s a great guy,” Shorter replies cheerfully. “Just don’t get on his bad side.”

Yut-Lung wonders what his good side is like, and in turn wonders about his brothers. He’d like to give them a chance, but after all six years of his life, he has little doubt about just how despicable they are.

“Hmm…” Shorter muffles a yawn, “No deliveries today. You got anywhere to be?”

Yut-Lung shakes his head.

“Cool. Free day then.” He turns to Benny and the others. “Yo, what are you guys up to?”

“Nothin’ much. Just the usual.”

“Alright,” Shorter nods, seeming to think through something. “I think I’ll head back – take the kid with me.”

“He’s not from one of the other gangs is he?”

“Nah.”

“…Yeah, not with that outfit,” is what Yut-Lung hears before Shorter leads him back over the way they came. He frowns.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” He asks with genuine confusion as they step back onto the street.

“They’re – uh – just never seen anyone on the streets wearing anything like that.” Shorter explains.

“I don’t –” Suddenly distracted, Yut-Lung pauses to stare at the playground next to them in all its red-plastic-and-metal glory. “Can we go over there?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

All his previous troubles already forgotten, Yut-Lung runs for the nearest structure – a swingset with rubbery plastic seats that he quickly clambers onto as Shorter watches, a quirked smile on his face. His legs aren’t nearly long enough to reach the ground, but he tries anyway, kicking at nothing until Shorter takes pity and pulls his swing back in one smooth movement.

Wind batters at his widely grinning cheeks as he flies up into the air, hands tightly fisted in the chains and legs still wildly kicking until he slows down in his descent.

“Again! Again!”

“ _Alright_ , kid.” Shorter sounds weary in tone, but he still looks perfectly content when Yut-Lung twists around to check. Still, it’s enough to have him awkwardly clambering from the swing after a few moments.

“Done already?” Shorter asks from where he’s standing by the metal frame of the swingset.

Yut-Lung nods.

“Alright. I mean, it’s not like I’ve anything super important back at Chang Dai – just wasn’t sure if you wanted to go wreck some rich people cars with the rest of the boys. We can stay for a bit longer if you want.”

Oh. “O-Okay.”

That’s how Yut-Lung finds himself whiling away a good part of an hour or so as Shorter perches atop the monkey bars then a spring rocker, apparently content in watching his younger companion tire himself out on the assorted equipment. He takes out a cigarette, and Yut-Lung wrinkles his nose a distance away.

“Want one?”

“No thanks.” The smoke makes him think of incense makes him think of stuffy family gatherings and rituals and funerals. 

Shorter shrugs. “More for me, I guess.”

A few more cigs later, Shorter suddenly exclaims, “Shit! I gotta get back to the restaurant.”

Yut-Lung peers at him from on top of the slide. “Huh?”

“And like, don’t you have a home to be getting back to?”

“Mm…” Yut-Lung makes a nervous noise. “What time is it?”

“Six. Ma’s gonna be all on my case, I know it,” Shorter rolls his eyes in exasperation. “She’s alright if I have a job, but like, whenever I’m free it’s _you better help out at the restaurant you know how it gets in the evenings_.”

Yut-Lung whizzes down the slide and gets to his feet, walking over to where Shorter takes a final puff of his cigarette and grinds it into the ground. “Can I help?”

“Oh! Uh – we can see if Ma has any jobs for you, I guess. Though most of the people there are adults – she didn’t even let me into the kitchen until what, a few years back?” He peers down at Yut-Lung. “How old were you again?”

“Nearly seven.”

Shorter shrugs. “Let’s see.” 

 

As it turns out, Shorter’s mother takes one look at Yut-Lung and immediately forbids him from taking one step into the bustling kitchen behind her. 

“Not with those clothes, no. And it’s dangerous in there.” Yut-Lung looks plaintively between the two of them, as Shorter only shrugs helplessly. “Say,” she adds after a moment, “would you want to wear some of Shorter’s old things? Your parents probably wouldn’t want you ruining that – did you run out on a wedding or what?”

Yut-Lung nods mutely. Not his _parents_ , to be exact, but – he hopes his brothers won’t take offense at the bit of dirt he’s gotten on himself. It’s the servants’ business, not theirs, but Wang-Lung had always been unreasonably strict. Yut-Lung nods again, harder.

“Alright. Shorter – go take care of the kid, but I’m expecting to see you down here again in ten.”

“Yes, Ma.” Shorter rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Lee – time to see how great you’ll look in my shitty old clothes.”

Yut-Lung curiously follows, down a side corridor he hadn’t noticed before and then up a few flights of stairs until they reach a rusted grille door that Shorter deftly unlocks, then a wooden door that creaks open. Inside, Yut-Lung sees a couch, a round plastic table, a built-in corner of a kitchen. He scuffs his feet against the dirty tile.

“Is this where you live?”

“Yeah. Ma and Pa and sis and me and the cat, Bongo – but she’s never around.”

Yut-Lung curiously looks around. It’s small, is the first thing he notices. Smaller than his own room, maybe, though he’d been given one of the less-spacious ones. Because of his mother, Yut-Lung assumes. But Shorter looks comfortable in the surroundings, walking down the small corridor to the far door, which he opens to reveal a haphazard bombshell of clothes and knickknacks and –

“Is that a gun?” Yut-Lung points at the metallic object sitting proudly at the centre of Shorter’s small desk.

“Yep!” Shorter picks it up, deftly unloading and loading the magazine while twirling it in his hands. “I just leave it here when I don’t need it for a job because the cops are less likely to arrest you if you’re not packing. And because Ma gets so tetchy about it…” He sighs, putting it back down. “Anyways, clothes…”

Yut-Lung watches quietly from the doorway as Shorter seems to magically pull bags of clothes from hidden corners of the already-tiny room, digging through them to periodically hold up a pair of jeans, some shorts, a t-shirt.

“This your size?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Try them on, then.”

He finds something that fits, eventually, pulling on a pair of stained jeans and a bright orange t-shirt with the name of some sports team. Both smell a bit musty, and Yut-Lung cautiously sniffs at the collar of the shirt.

Dusting his hands off as he stuffs the other clothes back to wherever they came from, Shorter eyes him from head to toe. “Cool. Now let’s see if Ma will let you back into the kitchen.”

Hugging his own clothes to his chest, Yut-Lung follows Shorter back downstairs, to which the latter is immediately met with a chaotic string of ‘serve this, wash that, chop _those_ , but properly’. Shorter lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she directs at Yut-Lung, “but it’s a bit too chaotic in here for me to let kids run around in good conscience. There’s some space behind the counter if you want a seat.”

Shorter pats his shoulder before dashing away. “See ya, kid.”

Now feeling a little out-of-place without the older boy to accompany him, Yut-Lung finds said seats – a stack of four or five plastic stools – behind the counter and climbs onto them with a little effort. He pulls his knees to his chest, hugs the bundle of clothes to his stomach, and rests his chin to quietly watch the hustle and bustle within the restaurant.

Nearly every table is crammed with customers sitting shoulder to shoulder, the dishes flying out as fast as they are being devoured. He eyes a plate of stir-fried noodles, a massive bowl of congee, neatly-sliced pieces of char siu, and feels his stomach quietly grumble. 

They’d be having dinner right about now back at the mansion, Yut-Lung usually sitting with his mother and a few of the servants (his brothers take dinner elsewhere, if they’re even in New York on the day). Without his mother, the process feels only uncomfortable and sterile, and he buries his face in his knees. He feels a lot more at ease in Chang Dai, even if he is starting to get a little hungry.

He is soon distracted from his stomach by the loud shouts from the kitchen, the clattering of someone washing utensils and crockery, the groups of customers echoing each other in their crescendos of noise. For once, the noise feels welcoming, or maybe it’s the exhaustion of the day that’s catching up to him, and Yut-Lung slowly drifts off, cheek pressed to a knee as his eyelids blink slow and heavy.

He’s interrupted by an unfamiliar voice. 

“Hey! Hey, kid!”

“Huh?” Yut-Lung cracks his eyes open and looks up to see a teenage girl with short hair thrusting a plate of food at him. _Nadia_ , he muzzily remembers, after Shorter introduced her that first time.

He reaches out to grab the plate with both hands. Noodles – and they smell delicious. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Ma didn’t want you to starve, so.”

Yut-Lung lets his legs dangle from the stool as he sets the plate on his lap and digs in. Despite being what any of his relatives would call common street food, the sauce is fragrant and the noodles cooked to perfection. He chews on a slice of beef.

_Maybe he could just stay here…_ Yut-Lung thinks idly, where there is food and companionship and hopefully space for him to stay. The noodles settle warmly in his stomach as he steadily devours his way through the plate, chopsticks clacking against plastic.

Only after he’s finished half the plate does he realise that Nadia’s still standing there, except she’s now behind the cash register. Yut-Lung listens curiously as the current customer attempts to haggle over a list of items, all clearly displayed on the menu on the wall alongside their prices. 

Nadia looks unimpressed. “Do you want to get the biggest gang in Chinatown involved? Because I can get someone else to deal with your problem.”

The man sheepishly hands over the proper sum. Nadia lets out an exasperated sound as he turns and leaves. With no one else waiting to pay, she leans against the back wall, turning to look at Yut-Lung after a pause.

“How’re the noodles?”

“Good.” Yut-Lung nods through a mouthful.

“Uhuh? That’s good.” She picks at a nail, smothers a wide yawn. “Say, what’s the deal with you and Shorter anyway? You don’t look like one of the boys off the street.”

“I met him today.”

“Oh, okay. I guess he’s got a bit of a knack for making friends with just about anyone – but just watch out if he starts convincing you that every kid and their baby cousin needs a gun just to walk around in broad daylight.” Nadia tuts. “He just thinks it makes him look cool.”

“I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” Yut-Lung admits.

“And let’s hope he never teaches you how.” Lazily raising a brow, Nadia pushes herself off the wall to address the customer waiting behind the counter. Yut-Lung goes back to his plate of noodles.

By the time he’s picking the last straggly bean sprout off the plate, Yut-Lung’s eyes are drooping with exhaustion and he lazily kicks his legs. The restaurant is still packed, perhaps with even more people than before, and he wonders quietly if any of the servants hired by the family are among the crowd. If they recognise him. 

Swallowing nervously, Yut-Lung shuffles off the stool and gingerly places the empty plate on the counter. Nadia turns to look at him.

“Done?”

“Yeah.”

“You going home?”

Yut-Lung nods hesitantly, every fibre of his being telling him to stay at Chang Dai for another hour, then two, then more. “Mhm.”

“‘Kay. I’ll let Shorter know.”

He nods again, wondering if Shorter is going to emerge from the kitchen to send him off. But when Nadia only goes back to her job and the kitchen door stays closed, Yut-Lung takes one cautious step towards the exit, then another.

“See ya.”

He waves at Nadia. “Bye.”

Thankfully, the streets of Chinatown are lit up with lampposts, bright enough that he doesn’t get horribly lost on the way back. Still, the number of alleyways he accidentally stumbles down is just enough that he’s about to burst into tears when he sees the locked gates of the mansion.

A guard nods at him. “Master Yut-Lung.”

He hesitantly steps through the open gate, then through the main double doors, sprinting and sprinting until he reaches his bedroom and can slam the door to the sound of his own wheezing breaths. 

He hopes his brothers don’t know. He hopes there won’t be any consequences.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sing makes his appearance!

The next morning, Yut-Lung wakes up to excitement thrumming within his ribcage. The subdued terror lurking in the back of his mind doesn’t have a chance to swim to the forefront, not when the only thing he can focus on is his next opportunity to run back out onto the street and straight to Chang Dai. 

He gobbles down his breakfast with such enthusiasm that one of the maids does a double-take.

“Is the young master excited for his classes today?”

Yut-Lung nods, his mouth full.

“What are you learning today, sir?”

“Herbal medicine.” 

Thankfully, it’s just the one lesson before he’s free to escape. In the past, he would have spent that same free time with his mother – whether out in the gardens or within the maze of the mansion. Now, there’s only the entirety of Chinatown for him to explore.

He fidgets restlessly throughout the hour-and-so of his lesson – to be reprimanded more than once – before fleeing the stuffiness of the library. He runs down to the atrium before suddenly remembering Shorter’s clothes, and then sprints a further few laps around his room in a panic before realising the shirt and jeans are neatly stacked with the rest of his freshly-laundered clothes. Good that he hadn’t lost them. He shimmies into the ensemble, getting a whiff of familiar laundry detergent.

At the front gate, Yut-Lung cringes to see the same guard he had attacked just the day before. Unexpectedly, the man doesn’t ask him any questions, and instead lets him through with just a nod and a disdainful look. 

Yut-Lung hurries past. It has to be a stroke of good luck or _something_ , he knows. His brothers had always monitored his movements in and out, and the staff are directly under their command. He shivers a little at the prickle on his neck from where he knows he’s being watched. Yut-Lung sprints further down the road. 

 

Chang Dai looks the same as it did yesterday, proving that the entire incident hadn’t been a hallucination. Shorter isn’t there to greet him from outside, so Yut-Lung cautiously steps into the restaurant by himself. There are only a handful of customers present before the lunch hour, and Yut-Lung safely navigates his way to the counter without fear of colliding into anyone.

He hesitates at the unfamiliar face behind the counter – not Nadia, this morning. The lady finally spots him after a moment, and peers down at him in surprise.

“Good morning, kid. What can I do for you?”

“Um – is Shorter here?”

“Oh, the boss’ son? I’ll go ask around.” She turns towards the kitchen as Yut-Lung nods gratefully.

“Thank you.”

“No probs.”

While he waits, Yut-Lung takes a seat at the table in the corner from yesterday and fiddles with the hem of his shirt. He wonders if Shorter is busy – the older kid seemed to have a lot to do – and if babysitting a six year old is on his agenda. He could always go find another restaurant…

Too busy being anxious, Yut-Lung doesn’t notice Shorter emerging from a side corridor until he hears someone call his name. 

“Hey, Lee!” Yawning, Shorter scratches at his bird’s-nest of hair and smoothes down his rumpled shirt. “What’re you doing up so early?”

“Hello. I always have to wake up early.”

“Wow… sounds rough.” Shorter pauses to take a detour at the counter, mumbling what seems to be his breakfast order to the lady there. “You had breakfast yet?”

Yut-Lung nods. It’s 10am.

He stays silent as Shorter kicks one of the stools out from under the table and sits down opposite him. 

“So,” Shorter starts, after muffling another wide yawn, “what’re you doing here today?”

“I don’t know.” Yut-Lung admits honestly. “What are you doing?”

“Hmm… chowing down on some quality congee, _first_. And then seeing if anyone’s got any jobs for me to do, I guess.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Deliveries, mostly. Sometimes the older guys get up to some important shit that they need kids to help with too, and I always get picked.” Shorter grins proudly, smile widening at the awed expression on Yut-Lung’s face.

“Important?”

“Yep,” Shorter replies, popping the ‘p’. “Like when they’re breaking into someplace, or figuring out somethin’ with loads of money, or planning a gunfight!”

“Wow, have you… fought with a gun?”

Shorter chuckles sheepishly. “Never been in a gunfight, nah… mainly we just help out behind the scenes, but it still feels cool, right?” He looks a little disappointed, but his demeanour immediately brightens with the arrival of his breakfast. “Hey! My food!”

The bowl of congee and the plate of fried dough beside it smell heavenly to Yut-Lung’s nose, and he leans forward curiously before remembering his manners and carefully straightening in his seat.

“…Want some?” Shorter asks through a mouthful of food, having taken a moment to properly dig in and ignore everything around him.

“No, thank you.”

“Aw, really?” Shorter looks like he’s on the verge of cramming more food down his gullet, but he adds, regardless, “You sure? This is like, the best combo of preserved egg and congee and pork and congee and –” he crunches loudly into a stick of fried dough, “– ugh, the best thing created. On Earth.”

Yut-Lung giggles. “No it’s okay, thank you.” He grins at the glimmer of gratitude that appears in Shorter’s eyes before he resumes ravenously devouring his way through bowl and plate. 

Maybe five minutes later, Shorter collapses against the table to shove the now-pristine tableware away, and cradle his belly almost desperately. “That was so good… why is food so good…”

“I like congee too,” Yut-Lung states idly, thinking of the few occasions he had gotten sick and first tried the thick rice porridge. It had tasted bland at first, maybe to his flu-addled taste buds, but he’s grown to like it. Especially after that one time he had heard his brother’s disdainful comment about common slop.

Yut-Lung wonders if his brother has ever gotten sick, and if he’d had to eat the same thing. It makes for a funny picture.

Shorter dramatically groans again from opposite him, and the smile on Yut-Lung’s face morphs into concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Shorter offers a thumbs-up. “Just digesting things.” 

“Okay.”

Yut-Lung kicks his feet, stares at his hands in his lap, focuses on the flowery pattern trailing down one side of the plastic plate. He curiously watches the customers as they eat, then the kitchen door as it swings open and shut every now and then to let through another waitress carrying either full or emptied bowls. The oranges in the shrine by the counter are impressively round. 

Just as the third fly has flown in through the open doorway, a loud yell comes from the direction of the counter. 

“Shorter!”

Shorter woozily picks his head up from where it had collapsed against the tabletop, looking half asleep.

“Wazzup…”

“Shorter, there’s a phone call for you!” It’s the same lady who had spoken to Yut-Lung.

Shorter groans and reluctantly picks himself up. “Alright…” He stomps over to where a telephone handset is being thrust towards him and takes it with an annoyed expression. 

While he waits, Yut-Lung distantly thinks about the one important, business-related call he had overheard one of his brothers take. Stock markets? He wonders what Shorter is talking about.

He soon finds out when the other boy walks back towards the table, rubbing at his face with a groan. “Hafta pick up a kid from kindy. ‘pparently it’s my turn on babysitting duty.”

“Kindergarten? How old are they?”

“Four, I think.”

“Oh. Are you going now?”

“Yeah.”

Yut-Lung pushes his stool away from the table. “Can I come too?”

“Sure, why not. Maybe you two babies will get along.”

“I’m not – !”

Shorter ducks out of the way before Yut-Lung can so much as touch him, dancing towards the doorway. 

 

They take an unfamiliar route through Chinatown today, and Yut-Lung peers around at the signs and storefronts until Shorter has to hold onto his hand and tug him down the right path. Yut-Lung pulls his hand away with a pout.

“I said I’m not a baby!”

“A baby wouldn’t get lost, would they?”

“No.”

“Then don’t get lost.”

Yut-Lung sticks closer to Shorter’s side after that, until they reach the doorstep of a tall plaza complex.

“This’s the place.” Shorter pushes open the glass double doors and scours the lobby until he spots a staircase. The stairwell is cramped and dim, but Yut-Lung manages to jog up several flights without tripping over himself or Shorter in front of him. They eventually stop on a random floor (Yut-Lung hasn’t been counting), and Yut-Lung follows Shorter past the creaky wooden door and down a narrow corridor until the sound of raucous children is loud enough to block out the grating of pipes overhead.

The final door they push open is appropriately plastered with a multitude of colourful posters, all decorated with bright cartoon animals and cheery slogans and the occasional picture of smiling children. What greets them at the reception of the kindergarten is not a smiling child.

“ _Fuck_ you!” shrieks the little menace currently being restrained by a frazzled-looking daycare worker. The screech is loud enough that Yut-Lung physically flinches away. 

The boy is younger than him, dressed in a blue hoodie (currently covering his head, with the strings pulled tight) and kicking his feet at the drab pattern of the carpet.

“Sorry, miss.” Shorter drawls. “I’ll take the kid off you.”

“Oh – we were expecting to see someone _older_ …”She struggles to hold onto the boy, who looks about as slippery as a determined eel.

“Got told by the old guys to come pick’im up.”

“Well, if that’s the case…” She looks grateful to be rid of him, letting go of the boy for him to shoot off in Shorter’s direction. “Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

They step back out of the daycare as she leaves the reception for what must be the main play area. Shorter shakes his head.

“Older, my ass. Just ‘cause I’m not as tall as your average guy… I _swear_ they’ve sent the other kids before.”

“To pick him up?” Yut-Lung nods at the child sprinting ahead of them towards the stairwell.

“Yeah. Name’s Sing and apparently the kindy has a problem with him swearing all the damn time. No clue why.”

“Fuck you, Shorter!” reverberates up the corridor towards them and Shorter pauses, a frown quickly forming on his face.

“Hey, that’s not very nice,” he snaps. “And I didn’t even do anything!”

Sing giggles in the distance.

 

They catch up to him eventually, Shorter storming over to forcefully catch Sing by the arm. The hood of his jacket has fallen off with all the running, to reveal a head of messy black hair crowning an innocent-looking face.

“Hey, Sing, this is Lee. Say hi.” Shorter sounds so awfully mature that Yut-Lung nearly does a double-take.

Cautiously, he offers a wave. Sing squints at him, those innocent-looking eyes narrowing to meticulously eye him up and down. Before he can back away to a safe distance, Sing has already blown a very loud, very wet raspberry at his face. Yut-Lung grimaces.

“Sing!” 

“… hi Lee.”

Shorter has a pained expression on his face the entire time as the three of them make their way back to Chang Dai. It takes a little longer, on account of Sing running into every store they walk past and nearly in front of every car that whizzes by them.

“Why’d _I_ have to get picked for babysitting duty…”

“Who normally takes care of him?” Yut-Lung asks curiously.

“Whoever.” Shorter glances down at the boy struggling to get away from the vice-grip of his hand. “Hey, Ling-Ling, who normally takes care of you?”

“Dunno. And _don’t call me that!_ ”

Shorter offers Yut-Lung a shrug as Sing wriggles free once more. “Just whoever takes care of him.”

“Oh. Ling-Ling?”

“His first name’s Soo-Ling.”

“Okay.” Yut-Lung had never gotten a nickname, and he’d never really had the overbearing relatives for it, either. He wonders if it would have sounded as offensive to his ears as it apparently does to Sing’s.

 

When the three of them finally step over the threshold to Chang Dai, Sing seems to deem it acceptable to scream “ _Food!_ ” at the top of his lungs before dashing towards what Yut-Lung now recognises as the kitchen door. It slams shut behind him with a bang.

“I thought no kids were allowed…?” Yut-Lung curiously looks up at Shorter. The older boy shrugs helplessly.

“He’s a loose cannon. I think it’s prob a safety hazard even having him here in the restaurant but I mean, what can ya do?”

They don’t need to worry for long though, because Shorter’s mother soon barges out of the kitchen, one energetic kid in tow, all the while loudly giving a lecture that’s being entirely ignored.

“…rules from last time, Sing, don’t you remember?” She turns to look at Shorter. “Can you keep him occupied just long enough that we don’t get into any too-serious accidents?”

“I can try, I guess…” Shorter sounds reluctant.

She looks unimpressed, levelling a look at Shorter that has Yut-Lung cowering a little. “Can you or _can you not_?”

“…I can.” Shorter rolls his eyes at her back. “So, Ling-Ling, what kinda things are you into right now?”

“Knife.” 

Yut-Lung goes a little pale when he sees a flash of intelligence glimmer in Sing’s eyes as he stares at the sheath on Shorter’s belt.

“Oh, great. Do you want toy cars instead? We have some upstairs.”

Sing shakes his head, and Shorter leads him up the stairs anyway. 

As it quickly turns out, upstairs may not have been the best of ideas. Because upstairs means Shorter’s family’s flat means _Shorter’s room_ , and right there on the desk is Shorter’s gun. Sing doesn’t look tall enough to reach it, until suddenly he’s dancing around the room with his bounty in both hands. 

Shorter is currently preoccupied, half-buried in a closet looking for toys, and Yut-Lung panics with the responsibility that’s fallen upon his shoulders. “Hey! Put that down!”

Sing wrinkles his nose. “What?”

“Put that down, it’s not yours!”

“Finders keepers!” Sing shrieks, and Yut-Lung takes a step back, then another in fear.

Just then, Shorter emerges, head covered in dust and arms full of toys. The victorious expression on his face quickly turns into horror.

“Whoa – !”

He drops the toys with a clatter, and before Yut-Lung can blink, launches himself across the room to tackle Sing into the ground and wrestle the gun from his pudgy hands. Sing looks just as shocked.

“No guns ‘til you’re double digits at _least_.” Dusting himself off, Shorter goes to put the gun back down on the table while Sing stares up at him with a betrayed expression. “C’mon kid, we’re going back downstairs.”

Sing doesn’t respond from where he’s still sprawled on the ground, and Yut-Lung is suddenly scared – Shorter looks about twice his weight or more – what if…

His fears are confirmed when Sing’s bottom lip starts wobbling, his eyes go big and watery, and he scrunches his face up to let out a bloodcurdling wail.

“Oh Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Shorter mutters, looking faint. “Hey, c’mon – I didn’t mean to hurt you, okay?” 

Sing makes another tortured noise, and the both of them crowd closer to him in concern. He looks so miserable, curled into a defensive ball and mouth downturned in an obviously pained grimace, that Yut-Lung fails to notice the eye that cracks open to stare at them. He nearly gets a foot to the face when Sing loudly erupts,

“Gotcha, motherfucker!”

Shorter doesn’t get away that easily, taking the full brunt of whatever insanity has compacted itself into Sing’s tiny frame through an uppercut to the jaw. He topples backwards with a cry, cradling his chin to glare at the kid currently leering at him.

“You’re in for it now, asshole!”

Sing sticks his tongue out. “Bite me!” His footsteps patter loudly out into the corridor, and Yut-Lung watches him go, still frozen in shock.

He turns back to Shorter after a pause. “Are you alright?”

Shorter rubs his head with a groan. “Ugh, I’m not gonna die or anything… Can’t believe I fell for that. I _swear_ he didn’t know how to do that the last time I seen him.”

“He’s sneaky.”

“He’s a _public hazard_. C’mon, let’s see if he’s managed to kill anyone yet.” Taking the boxes of toy cars and bricks under one arm, Shorter gets to his feet. He eyes the gun still sitting relatively safely on his desk before stomping out of the room. 

The sight they are greeted by upon coming downstairs is thankfully a peaceful one. One of the waitresses has somehow coaxed Sing into sitting down at one of the tables, bowl of _something_ clutched in one pudgy hand. Something creamy orange – Yut-Lung leans over to curiously peek at the half-eaten bowl before Sing whips it away, clutching it protectively to his chest.

“Hey!”

“What’s that?” 

“…Mango pudding.”

Shorter sniffs, tossing the toys onto the table with a heavy thump. “Lucky bastard.”

“Yeah,” Sing agrees, taking another bite.

Yut-Lung takes a seat next to him, to fiddle with the nearest box of toys. “Can I try some?” He’s never had mango pudding, but it doesn’t sound like it could taste bad. He takes another long look at Sing’s bowl.

“Nah.”

“…Okay.”

Thankfully, Shorter is quick to come to the rescue. “ _Fine,_ I’ll go see if I can wrangle us some puddings.”

“Can I have another one?” Sing mumbles through a mouthful.

“No.”

Sing huffs and goes back to determinedly devouring his dessert, while beside him Yut-Lung unpacks a box of colourful bricks. He is just figuring out how the pieces can click into place when a shrill voice beside his ear interrupts:

“Whatchu lookin’ at, bitch?” 

“Excuse me?”

Sing stares back at him, plastic spoon sticking out his mouth and an equally perplexed expression on his face. “…Dunno. Heard someone say it once.”

Yut-Lung nods cautiously. “Do you want some plastic bricks?”

Sing makes a disdainful noise and leans across the table to reach for the other box, the lid lifting up to reveal a spill of plastic-and-metal cars rolling across the tabletop. Sing tries to grasp as many as he can in each hand as Yut-Lung examines the tiny models in interest. Shorter’s childhood must have been exciting, he thinks with a visceral swell of longing.

His own excitement soon grows when he realises that the bricks are free for him to assemble as he wants, and when Shorter returns, puddings in hand, it is to Yut-Lung’s precariously towering creation rising up from the tabletop.

“Look what I made!”

Shorter sets a bowl in front of him. “What’s that, kiddo?”

“A big building.”

“Uhuh? Well, you guys have fun.” And with that said, he parks himself on a nearby stool. Yut-Lung darts a look at him for just long enough to make out the glossy pages of a magazine in front of Shorter’s slouched figure. He soon turns back to his tower, mind already blooming with various possible creations. Even Sing’s animated noises from beside him – he hears a street race, then a distinct explosion – can’t distract him from the task at hand.

It’s the most fun he’s had in a while, Yut-Lung realises amongst the concentrated flurry of ideas in his mind, just as Shorter said. Even if Sing doesn’t seem to think so – he pushes off his stool sometime during Yut-Lung’s careful construction of a neighbouring tower block to run screaming around the restaurant, with Shorter’s own panicked yells to join in the cacophony – but he pays them no mind.

“You a real architect, huh?” Someone asks as he’s three garages in, each car snug in its own brick house, and Yut-Lung mumbles an affirmative before looking up to see Nadia.

“Hello.”

“Hi to you too. Why can’t all the kids Shorter brings over be like you?” She raises a slow brow, mouth twisting in wry displeasure.

“Sing?”

“Yep. I think the two of them ran upstairs – thank f- _god_ for that.”

Yut-Lung drops the brick he’s holding and it clatters on the table. “Oh… last time we were upstairs, Sing took Shorter’s gun.”

“He _what_?”

Yut-Lung nods quickly. “He’s scary.”

Nadia blows out a furious exhale, turning to look at where the two of them must have disappeared to. “Damn right he is.”

She walks away a moment later, and Yut-Lung turns back to his bricks. The owner of his little metropolitan landscape has a business meeting to attend, and he quickly wheels the driver out of the nearest garage.

“Where to, sir…” he mumbles under his breath, wheeling the little car up and down the table in a parody of Manhattan’s maze of streets. He’s never really had many opportunities to tour New York in the same way, mostly keeping to the mansion except for when his mother had errands to run. But his brothers have always had more freedom, and it is this freedom that he carves into the tabletop with every little roll of the toy car’s wheels. Humming to himself, he parks the car on a cliff’s edge – the table’s chipped edges – pausing when he sees Nadia come downstairs with the two boys in tow. 

Sing looks to have finally quieted down a little, and he obediently walks back to the table when Nadia shoos him aside.

“Hey Lee.”

“Hi.”

“Can I have your mango pudding?”

“Hey –” He’d forgotten all about it, Yut-Lung realises in surprise, too intent on stacking and stacking and further stacking each little piece of plastic. He quickly grabs the bowl before Sing can steal it away. “No you can’t, sorry.”

“A’ight. Loser.”

Yut-Lung hastily crams a spoonful of the wobbly orange pudding into his mouth. Creamy – and sweet. Like the milk tea from yesterday, but delicious in a different way. Sing wrinkles his nose at him as the pudding quickly disappears.

“Whatever.”

“It was mine!” Yut-Lung protests. “Shorter gave it to me.”

Instead of replying, Sing opts to yawn widely and obnoxiously in his face before planting face-down on the table. Yut-Lung stares at him, puzzled. That is, until he vaguely remembers the high-pitched screaming and pattering of feet that had plagued the restaurant for a good many minutes – perhaps even Sing has physical limits. Shrugging to himself, he goes back to his elaborate New York cityscape.

And he would have stayed immersed in his own creation for another good hour or more, if it weren’t for the conversation happening a short distance away. Yut-Lung blames his own sensitive hearing for picking out that specific exchange from amongst the babble of customers within the restaurant, but it doesn’t make what he hears any easier to digest.

Nadia’s sharp, reprimanding tones, “I can’t believe _you_ – ”

“Not my fault, sis!”

“ _Not your fault?_ ” Her every word is unmistakeably laced with tense disagreement, and Yut-Lung holds his breath, the brick within his palm digging into his flesh as he tenses also.

“It was an accident! And c’mon, nothing happened!”

“Nothing happened _this time_.” From the corner of his eye, Yut-Lung can see the sharp angles of her shoulders stiffening, her stance threatening enough to have her brother cowering away. He wants to yell at Shorter to run, even if he’ll never be heard over the crowd and the waves of noise growing in his ears that threatens to mask whatever comes next. 

But he can still hear in near-clarity as Shorter yelps, “I’m sorry, okay?”

Yut-Lung grips the edge of his seat, dizzy with terror as the next words filter through. “ … not _enough_! … apologise to Ma, to… if you’re _dead_?”

By now, Yut-Lung has fully turned to stare at the scene with wide, wary eyes. Shorter looks to have gone a little pale. 

“I’m not _gunna_!”

“Yeah, asshole?” She raises an arm then, and a whimper catches in Yut-Lung’s throat. He squeaks when a slap lands atop Shorter’s mess of a haircut, the older boy himself letting out a startled yelp.

“No hittin’ kids, c’mon!”

Nadia crosses her arms, looking unimpressed. “Then no guns for kids, either.”

“…Fii _iiiine._ ” Shorter waves his hands in exasperation as she turns and leaves to swiftly end the conversation. He looks increasingly peeved as he notices Yut-Lung looking their way, a wide grimace spreading on his face as he raises his shoulders to his ears.

However, upon returning to the table, he frowns in concern. “You alright there, lil’ guy? Lookin’ a bit peaky.”

Yut-Lung nods stiffly, trying to speak over the solid lump in his throat. “A-Are you okay?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“N-Nadia.”

“Jee- _sus_ , how embarrassing was that? I swear the whole restaurant could hear us…”

Yut-Lung balls his fists in his shirt and attempts, in the quietest voice possible: “Will she hurt you?”

“What, hurt my feelings? Does it every day, goddamn.” Shorter chuckles, stretching his arms out to loudly crack his back. “Oh yeah – we need to get lunch before we forget and it gets to dinner already. You wanna see if Sing’s died of starvation yet? I’ll go get us somethin’.” 

Blinking in confusion, Yut-Lung watches as Shorter walks away and back to the kitchen, seemingly unaffected by everything that had just happened. His head is still a whirl of pounding nausea as he leans heavily against the table. 

Sing lets out a muffled snore beside him, and Yut-Lung violently shakes himself from his stupor just in time to see Shorter take a seat opposite the two of them.

“Should be something comin’ around soon – got us rice and stuff.”

“O-Okay.” Darting another look at Shorter – now bright and cheery again, if a little subdued by hunger (he dramatically clutches his belly) – Yut-Lung cautiously goes back to his bricks. The idea of little cars carrying his brothers across town doesn’t seem as inviting anymore, and he quickly weaves a different narrative.

Maybe someone has to run errands for a restaurant…

The food arrives soon enough – bowls of steaming fried rice with a plate of dumplings on the side. Sing mumbles against the tabletop as Shorter leans over to thwack him across the head. 

“Wake up, food’s here!”

“Hunh?”

“Or you can starve, I don’t care.”

They start digging in as Sing rubs the sleep from his eyes, Yut-Lung mechanically chewing past the nausea that had just previously lodged itself in his throat. His belly rumbles as if in warning, but he forces down at least a third of the bowl, focusing on the taste instead of his own discomfort. 

Sing and Shorter look a lot more at ease – chowing down on their lunch while barely pausing for breath.

“Good, huh?” Shorter glances at the two of them over the rim of his bowl.

Yut-Lung nods, silently eating another mouthful. It _is_ good – light and fluffy and filled with a variety of ingredients – enough so that he would go back for another bowl if his appetite allowed for it. He reaches for the nearest car, running it idly up the side of his bowl as he eats and thinks.

Mealtimes could be a lot more tolerable at the Lee household if they had toys at the table…

Yut-Lung continues to listlessly push the grains of rice around his bowl as out of the corner of his eye he can see Sing and Shorter dash off and outside. He feels a sudden exhaustion – maybe the same one that had overtaken Sing just a moment ago – and carefully rests his head on crossed arms, blinking momentarily at the people in the restaurant, now sideways, before closing his eyes.

 

Sometime in between taking a short nap and continuing to push the toy cars around, the sky outside has darkened to a soft navy blue and the restaurant has filled to the brim with people, enough so that customers are waiting outside on the street for a place to sit. It should come as no surprise to him when Shorter taps his shoulder and gestures awkwardly at the toy bricks and cars scattered over the entirety of their table, but he startles nonetheless.

“Sorry, Ma wants us to pack up.”

Yut-Lung glances at the constructions that he’s already grown to love. “Do I have to – do I have to break it apart?” He hates that his voice hinges on a desperate note, but the thought of unstacking each piece weighs heavy in his heart.

“Uhh…” Shorter gives it a moment of consideration before shrugging. “I guess we can carry it upstairs and keep it in my room? Just help me clean up the other stuff too.”

“O-Okay.” Yut-Lung wrings his hands, adding as an afterthought, “Thank you.”

“Oh, no prob.”

They make quick work of the mess of toys, quicker when one of the customers at a nearby table makes a disapproving noise. “About time…”

Between the two of them, they manage to make it up to Shorter’s bedroom in one trip, two boxes of toys and four misshapen buildings distributed among them. Yut-Lung beams as Shorter carefully sets each structure on his table, and then lets him rearrange them to his liking.

“You wanna stay up here? I gotta help downstairs again.”

Nodding enthusiastically, Yut-Lung says again, “Okay. Thank you.”

On his way out, Shorter flicks the light switch on. “You have fun, lil’ guy.”

Shorter’s chair is tall enough that he can reach the desk with ease, and Yut-Lung kicks his legs through the peace and quiet of the room, listening to the clacking of bricks as he expands his township. There are a pair of slightly-grimy windows on one wall, and he turns his head to look out at the quiet evening outside. 

The streets of New York never sleep, but from what he can see of the silent rooftops opposite them and the streetlights winking farther in the distance, Yut-Lung can almost imagine that it’s sometime past midnight. Not that he’s ever stayed up that late.

His car chases idle circles some distance away from Shorter’s gun as silence presses in through the windows and the slight vibration of voices from downstairs are quiet enough to be a figment of the imagination.

A little later and those voices become distinct shouts as Sing tramples up the stairs and towards him, yelling something about food – dinner, no doubt – and Yut-Lung feels a swell of gratitude towards Shorter’s family. His mother makes a reappearance as they are nearly finished.

“Will you be taking the kid home soon?” She nods towards Sing, who narrows his eyes at her in response.

“Yeah,” Shorter drawls.

“And you, Lee?”

“O-Okay.”

Shorter quirks a brow at him as his mother returns to her duties with a few more final reminders that all go ignored. “Where didja say you lived? We might as well all head out together.”

Yut-Lung swallows nervously at the idea, the sensible part of his brain quickly cautioning him against letting anyone in the mansion see his new friends. He flounders for a response.

“Um, uhh… I-I can go home by myself.”

“Alright then,” Shorter shrugs. “I’m just taking Sing down to the bar on Mott, so –”

“I can go home by myself,” Yut-Lung repeats automatically, before he realises what Shorter said. “Sing lives at a bar?”

“They’ve got a spare bed for him, yeah.”

Sing yawns widely at the mention. For all his earlier energy, the boy now looks a second away from falling asleep, the chopsticks in his hand and food in his bowl the only things keeping him awake. Yut-Lung stifles a yawn of his own.

As reluctant as he is to go home, the idea of his bed and plush blankets is sounding increasingly attractive with every passing minute. He carefully gets down from his stool when the other two boys stand up to leave.

“Oh, you comin’ with us?”

Yut-Lung nods at Shorter. “I wanted to go now.”

“Alright. C’mon Sing, don’t fall asleep on me.” He swings his arm back and forth to shake Sing’s own half-asleep arm. 

They step out onto the street and immediately head in the opposite direction to the mansion. Yut-Lung hurriedly scrambles to interrupt the pair.

“B-Bye!”

Shorter twists around to look at him, while Sing keeps up his semi-conscious act. “Oh – see ya, Lee.”

“Goodbye…” The desire to follow them around Chinatown grows as he watches their retreating backs, but Yut-Lung forces himself to turn around. 

The guards that greet him at the mansion are worlds away from the crowds that frequent Chang Dai, and the short walk to his quarters is made in stifling silence far colder than the peace of Shorter’s bedroom.

Still, he is only six, and tired, and Yut-Lung soon falls asleep within the familiar embrace of his bed sheets. He wakes up not long after.

 

To any six-year old, an adult is intimidating just in stature. Said adult is made even more intimidating if he is leaning over your just-unconscious body, frown in place and hand wrapping a tight circle around your neck.

Yut-Lung surfaces from murky dreams to a worse nightmare.

“Good evening, brother.” Each word is controlled, carefully measured, and laced with the threat of something worse. Yut-Lung whimpers at the sight of his eldest brother.

“S-Sorry…”

“What are you apologising for? What does it concern me that you seek the company of street urchins and common dogs?”

“I’m s-sorry,” Yut-Lung mumbles again, fighting past his indignation to try and appear as small and unprovocative as possible.

“Why don’t you apologise to Father instead, for producing such a waste of an heir. Or perhaps your mother, if she wasn’t picked up off the streets herself.”

Yut-Lung nods, dizzy with the pounding in his ears. It would have long swept him off his feet if he wasn’t already lying in bed, and another desperate sound catches in his throat as he struggles to lift his arms from where they feel trapped under the layers and layers cocooning him in.

“I won’t stop you if this is what you choose for yourself – I have more important business to attend to. But just remember that the Lee family does _not_ tolerate your kind.”

 _My kind? What kind?_ Yut-Lung hazily thinks with his last threads of consciousness. _Are you going to murder me like my mother?_

“Goodnight, Yut-Lung.”

The pressure increases on his neck and his vision goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u cant leave kudos just rmb :) i Super Appreciate any and all comments even if its just a single emoji :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tyy for all the kudos + comments + bookmarks from the last 2 chapters i really appreciate it :3

When he wakes for the fourth time that night, Yut-Lung finally sees a sliver of dawn sunshine peek into his room and decides that he’s kept up the charade of sleep for long enough. He shifts again under the covers, bringing a hand close to his face before carefully touching it to the side of his neck. Not nearly large enough to cover a majority of his neck, and he pulls it away when his nape flutters in pain.

Rubbing his eyes, Yut-Lung flips over onto his other side, pulls his duvet over his head to inhale a lungful of stale air, then throws it aside in favour of sitting upright. The city below him, when he moves to pull open the curtains, is just about waking up and he is similarly torn between returning to bed and addressing the arrival of a new day. The layer of exhaustion that has settled on Yut-Lung’s shoulders is unwilling to disperse even as he trudges to the bathroom, and he shakes his head at the frowning face in the mirror.

After a solid few minutes, he swallows his apprehension and carefully steps back down to Earth from the step-stool in front of the bathroom sink, then out into his room to robotically dress himself in preparation for breakfast and his morning classes.

A yawn stretches his jaw, bare indication of his bone-deep fatigue.

 

When he is finally excused from what felt like an unusually gruelling morning of lessons, Yut-Lung is twitchily on the verge of erupting into tears, or screams, or perhaps something else entirely. The nagging reminders of the family’s high standards hadn’t been as encouraging as his tutor expected, and his drooping shoulders weigh him down as he slowly trudges out into the noon sunlight. Yut-Lung casts a careless glance at both sides of the street before dashing off in the direction that he knows will take him to his one safe haven – even his bedroom feels insecure now.

In unfortunate mimicry of that first day, he stumbles his way down the pavement to nearly trip on a loose brick as he approaches Chang Dai. Shorter greets him through the lunchtime crowd as he enters, waving chopsticks from behind a bowl of noodles.

“Hey, kiddo! Who woke up earlier today, huh?”

Yut-Lung feels like he’s been awake for long enough to deserve a night or two of decent sleep right now, but stays silent as he shuffles onto the seat beside Shorter. Shorter loudly slurps his noodles in response.

“What’s up?” A hand comes to rest on one drooping shoulder and Yut-Lung surprises himself when he doesn’t flinch. “You alright?”

“…Yes.”

“Okay,” Shorter shrugs once before going back to his food, what appears on closer inspection to be a steaming bowl of dumplings and noodles. 

Yut-Lung hugs his knees on his chest to balance precariously on his stool, and rests his head, distractedly eyeing the contents of Shorter’s bowl. The boy eats rapidly, noodles quickly disappearing to reveal the clear broth underneath. The moment when he finally finishes is announced by a loud belch.

“Ahh – that was good. You had lunch yet, Lee?”

Yut-Lung shakes his head.

“Oh. You want noodles?”

Tilting his head to blink up at Shorter, Yut-Lung considers for a brief moment before his politeness gives in to his empty stomach and increasing urge to do something other than bleakly stare off into the distance. A vision of colourful plastic bricks swims before him…

“O-Okay. Thank you,” he mumbles, and Shorter is quick to leap from his chair, give his belly a good pat, and negotiate with his sister at the counter.

“Haven’t you already had one whole bowl?” Yut-Lung can hear despite the chatter in the room, as well as Shorter’s annoyed response.

“ _No_ , this is for my friend.”

“Oh, well you kids have fun.”

He shifts a little on his stool in the meantime, one ear still pressed to his knees while the other faces the ceiling and the hubbub within the room. As usual, the chatter is enough to drown out any lingering memories of the stale silence within the Lee mansion, especially the frosty interactions over the dining table. Yut-Lung curls tighter into himself, thinking of his mother’s voice lighting up their shared quarters that he now continues to inhabit – though they’d removed her bed. And just last night, Wang-Lung had dared trespass into their space. But what little anger he feels is quickly smothered by other growing emotions, a swirl of fear and anxiety that even now forms a tangible lump in his throat. He swallows past it when Shorter asks him another question, having returned without him noticing.

“You wanna go out an’ do some deliveries with me?”

“N-Not really.” Despite his somewhat uncomfortable position, Yut-Lung doesn’t really want to move, lest he break the fragile calm that wants to settle, laden with the scent of food and sound of strangers, within his panicked mind.

“Oh, alright.”

Shorter twiddles his thumbs, scuffs his soles against the tile a few times, before dashing off and out of sight to leave Yut-Lung alone at the table. The waitress seems to hesitate a moment at the sight, looking around to check if she has the right table before setting the bowl of noodles down with a rough clink. Yut-Lung raises his head at the smell of food.

He digs in almost immediately, burning his tongue a little on the steaming dumplings. The tightness in his throat has yet to disappear, but he steadily eats his way through the bowl regardless, ignoring the burning in his eyes and on his tongue and on his inner cheek from where he loudly and painfully bit into flesh. He tastes a sudden influx of salt first, then hears Nadia’s voice from somewhere above him, having snuck up on him.

“You doin’ okay, kid?”

Yut-Lung blearily raises his head at her voice mid-slurp, biting his noodles to let them fall back into the bowl. Only then does he fully recognise the fat droplets plinking into his lunch and his blurred vision. He nods, sniffling. 

“No you’re not, okay?” Nadia sounds a little irritated, before a pitying expression appears on her face. “I’m only doing this because you’re a nice kid – _and_ the counter’s kinda empty, so why don’t you tell your big sis what’s up?”

Yut-Lung hiccups and turns back to his noodles, giving them a half-hearted stir before realising his appetite’s long dwindled to nothing.

“…it’s nothing.” It’s not nothing, and the misery lodged in his gullet threatens to spill over with another one of Nadia’s sympathetic looks. He kicks at some of the nervousness in his legs, shaking his head emphatically.

She sighs. “Well, alright – I’ve got a job to be getting back to anyways, so just let me know when you wanna stop looking like a sad abandoned child in the corner. We’ve ‘lready been getting a few questions about it.”

Yut-Lung snaps his blotchy, tear-stained face towards her, before another hiccup breaks loose and his face crumples up once more. “I’m not – !”

“You want to talk about it?” She asks, before adding after seeing his still-present hesitation, “You know, this reminds me of havin’ to comfort Shorter every time he came home after embarrassing himself in front of this kid or that kid… Prolly all the kids in the neighbourhood.”

“Really?” Yut-Lung pauses to eye her curiously.

Nadia nods smugly. “Yup. So I bet you there’s no way you’re crying about a more embarrassing reason than thinking you could use mayo as hair gel and getting swarmed by flies.”

Yut-Lung blinks in wide-eyed silence. “O-Oh, okay…”

He gives his bowl of cooling noodles another look, sets down the chopsticks he had been clutching in an iron grip, and warily faces Nadia. She’s perched on the stool opposite him, a patient expression on her face.

“I – I…” The words come out in a disorderly rush, every terrifying experience he’s had with his brothers, every violently vengeful imagined response, all boiling down to a loud cry for help. _I… I hate them I hate them I hate them I –_

He scrubs at his face once more, sweeping aside his tears to see Nadia’s pained expression and the few customers at nearby tables alerted by his pitchy cries. Yut-Lung shrinks into himself again, still unable to stop his frame from shaking in distress.

She is silent for a thoughtful pause, rubbing her chin while darting occasional glances at the still-empty front counter.

“Who’re these bros of yours? Might be able to get Shorter or some of the others to leave them a threatening message or two for you…”

Yut-Lung shakes his head. “But they’re _really_ scary.”

“Uhuh? Well, I’ll let Shorter know anyways when he gets back.” She pushes away from the table, getting to her feet to holler at the customers coming in through the front door before turning back to Yut-Lung. “Be with ya in a tick! And hey, just let me know if you’re gonna go up to Shorter’s room for his toys and stuff.”

He nods quietly, already feeling a little more at peace with the whole situation. His appetite has yet to return, but he carefully chews at one final dumpling before hopping down from his stool and meandering towards the counter, where Nadia musses at his hair upon seeing him.

“Should be unlocked – just head up.”

Yut-Lung nods. “Okay.”

He fiddles with his now-messy ponytail as he pads up the staircase, one hand trailing along the dirty tile of the wall. The door at the top of the staircase is indeed unlocked, and Yut-Lung pushes inside to see the familiar interior of a place he quietly longs to call home, despite its cramped size.

The door to Shorter’s room is closed, and Yut-Lung has to remind himself that the place is empty after he knocks reflexively, waiting for a reply from within. He reaches up to grasp the door handle and steps inside to see, with a growing smile on his face, his same constructions from the night before, apparently untouched by Shorter himself. The rest of the room resembles the aftermath of an explosion, but his little structures remain in their same corner of Shorter’s desk. 

Yut-Lung carefully moves a pile of clothes off the chair to clamber on, and examines in relative quiet the sprawling construct of his miniature town, the turning wheels of each individual car. It distracts him a little from the still-raw distress in his heart. 

Idly, he wonders what plan Shorter could come up with against his brothers. The older boy always seems so confident and self-assured, and if Yut-Lung were to have even a fraction of his confidence… But he quickly changes his mind upon remembering Wang-Lung’s daunting height and domineering stance, swallowing nervously to run several more cars speeding back and forth across the tabletop.

He can hide in the quiet of Chang Dai for a while longer, even if the cityscape outside is the same one his nearest brothers look onto every morning.

 

Yut-Lung wakes to Shorter’s boisterous voice, raising his head in confusion to see that he has faceplanted into a pile of bricks and cars, a puddle of drool sticky at the corner of his mouth. He hurriedly wipes at it with his shirt.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Yut-Lung mumbles a response. 

“So,” Shorter begins confidently, “Heard you need your big bro Shorter to beat up some assholes for you?”

_That_ wakes Yut-Lung up, the reminder making a subdued smile grow on his face. “M-Mm.”

“Uhuh? Just let me know the deets then. Why’d you tell Nadia first, anyway?” Shorter adds, a little miffed.

“She asked.”

“Oh, fair.”

Yut-Lung launches into an explanation then, despite not feeling remotely awake or energetic enough to describe the situation in any clarity. Shorter seems to quickly grasp the scope of the situation anyway, if his paling face is anything to go by.

“Uh – how old did you say they are?”

“T-Twenty. He’s the oldest…” Twenty sounds aeons-old to both of their ears, Yut-Lung especially, and Shorter is quick to grimace at the realisation.

“Jeez, an _adult_? How’d you deal with that – I can’t even handle Nadia on a good day.”

Yut-Lung sadly shakes his head, lowering his eyes when he realises the conflicted expression on Shorter’s face mirrors the powerlessness he feels inside. He should have gone to someone else for help – but who? He perks up when Shorter’s voice trickles back into his awareness.

“ _But_ , I do know a few older dudes myself – I’m sure we can find at least one guy to beat up your asshole family for you.”

Yut-Lung looks at him with wide eyes. “Really?”

Shorter looks as confident as he sounds, all of his past uncertainty quick to fade. “You betcha. And anyways,” he adds, perhaps after seeing the hesitant look on Yut-Lung’s face, “I’m sure there’s always space where Sing’s at. Or here, but I gotta ask Ma.”

If possible, Yut-Lung feels his eyes widening even further, his legs unconsciously shifting him to the edge of the seat. Even if he’s never visited Sing’s household, or only known Shorter and his family for a handful of days, just a mention of the idea has him gripping his shirt in excitement.

“Really really?”

Shorter grins. “I’m sure there’s room for you somewhere, right? And as long as your fam doesn’t come kidnap you back or some crazy shit like that.” He scoffs and waves a hand, oblivious to the drooping smile on Yut-Lung’s face.

“O-Oh.” There’s no telling what crazy things his brothers might do, and Yut-Lung crosses his fingers as tight as he can even as he feels the glimmer of hope that had bloomed a second ago quickly slip out of reach. “Okay, thank you.”

The words sound stilted to his own ears, but Shorter still doesn’t notice, instead nudging at a spare car at one corner of his table before straightening up.

“Anyways, I gotta head out for another delivery soon – you wanna tag along?”

An awkward pause, before Yut-Lung jerks his head up. “What are you delivering?”

Shorter offers a conspiratorial waggle of the eyebrows and an even wider grin than before. “That’s for me to know and you to _not_ know.”

“So you can’t tell me?”

“No can do, little pal.”

After the strange exchange, the part of Yut-Lung that would have preferred to mope in peace is drowned out by the louder curiosity raring to find out what exactly Shorter is hiding from him.

“Can you tell me if I come with you?”

Shorter pretends to scratch at his chin, before replying with a decisive, “Nope! Sorry kid, but that’s the rules.”

“O-Okay… can I still come along?” Curiosity fully piqued, Yut-Lung slides off the chair to land on both feet, ready to follow Shorter to wherever he might go. There has to be a surprise behind all of this, he knows, and there’s no way he can sit still and remain in Chang Dai after _that_ possibility.

He races back down the staircase after Shorter’s cheery affirmative, each step an energetic contrast to his previous gloom. Nadia is there to greet him at the bottom of the stairs, turning from her spot behind the counter at his loud footsteps.

“Hey – you lookin’ better already?” 

Yut-Lung beams. “Shorter’s taking me on a mysterious journey outside.”

“Regular delivery,” Shorter adds from somewhere behind him. “But sure, we can make it an exciting thing.”

“You boys have fun then,” Nadia waves lazily. “Remember to stay off the big streets, and all that.”

Shorter replies with just as much enthusiasm, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Yut-Lung watches the exchange with round eyes before hurrying to follow Shorter out the door, falling into a familiar position at his side. The bright green backpack on the older boy’s back is an unfamiliar addition.

“What’s in the bag?”

Shorter tugs idly at the straps. “The thing I’m delivering. Not allowed to peek, sorry.”

“Okay.” Yut-Lung can’t help the moue of disappointment that forms. He was hoping for a big, extravagant parcel, the kind plastered with labels and stamps and all manner of strange forms. The type of thing his family would unwrap to reveal something precious and exotic from places he’s never heard of – and things he never gets to touch, either, but just watching the process is exciting enough. But maybe the secret in Shorter’s inconspicuous bag is even better.

They take another different route through Chinatown this time, and Yut-Lung has to wonder if Shorter really does know the maze of streets like the back of his hand. The older boy confidently walks down one street then the next, each filled with storefronts that blur into one brightly-lettered aggregate. Yut-Lung scrambles to keep up after dawdling to a halt to peer into each store, and feels his heart beat out of his chest when he once falls behind enough to lose sight of Shorter.

“Over here!” Comes a familiar voice, and Yut-Lung darts over to the nearest alleyway to see Shorter beckoning him down between its foetid walls.

“Where are we going?” Yut-Lung asks in confusion. He doesn’t enjoy tripping over the occasional loose brick or crack in the concrete, but the sidewalk is a lot more easier to walk on when compared to navigating between the back doors of nearby stores, each with their own assortment of festering rubbish bags and rusted equipment laid out in the shadows. He wrinkles his nose at the strangely sweet scent perfuming the air.

“Meetin’ this guy at his place. It’s not too far from here.”

Yut-Lung skirts an oil-slick puddle. “Does he live in the alley?”

“Nah!” Shorter exclaims. “This is just a shortcut of sorts.”

The journey doesn’t feel very short, but Yut-Lung dutifully follows behind him through the alleyway until they reach the next bustling street, to carefully cross and then duck into another alleyway before the next corner.

Just as he’s getting tired and wishing to skip down the wide sidewalks instead, Yut-Lung is led to a halt behind an ever-exuberant Shorter. 

“This’ the place.”

Before them is the dim interior of some kind of store – selling what, Yut-Lung can’t figure out. He moseys around the rectangular metal canisters stacked around the store, and peers at the faded labels on the various large plastic kegs. Meanwhile, Shorter is leaned against the counter, one hand fiddling with the backpack slung over one shoulder while his other hands gestures vividly in conversation with the store owner.

Yut-Lung has nearly forgotten about his curiosity that led him here when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shorter push a beige, non-descript package across the counter. He whirls around just in time to see it disappear amongst the general clutter lining one side of the counter. 

“You want to buy anything before you head off, boy?” He hears the storekeeper ask, and Shorter declines with a friendly shake of the head.

“No thank you. You have a good day.” He makes to exit, then swerves over to where Yut-Lung is still half buried in the stacks of towers of containers. “C’mon, we’re leaving.”

“What was that?” He asks immediately, loud enough for the storekeeper to turn at him with a beady eye, and Shorter quickly shoos him onto the street.

“You really want to know?” He asks when they’re safely out of earshot.

Yut-Lung nods fiercely, despite having forgotten just a moment ago about the parcel and its contents. “Yes!”

“Take a guess.”

“Um – food?” He tries.

“Nope.”

Yut-Lung scuffs his heels against the pavement in thought, not noticing the alternative route they’re taking back home – no more alleyways, for one. “Toys?”

Shorter grins. “Of a kind, yeah.”

“Do you have more at Chang Dai?”

“Nope.”

Yut-Lung pouts. “So you won’t tell me?”

Shorter looks down at him, brow wrinkling as he catches sight of Yut-Lung’s exaggerated look of dejection. “Hmm… well, as long as you promise to not tell anyone.”

“Never!” Yut-Lung leaps to exclaim. 

“Never promise?” Shorter grins.

“Never _tell anyone._ ”

“Alright, alright. It’s nothing big anyway now that I think about it. So you don’t need to look that excited.” Yut-Lung’s eyes remain wide open as Shorter continues. “Like, you know the fireworks they set off at New Year’s or whenever?”

“Yes.”

“Well, turns out they’re illegal for some reason, but people still wanna have fun and set things on fire. Obviously. So they get us kids to go all sneaky-like around town deliverin’ the parts you need to make fireworks.”

“Parts?”

“Weird powders and things.”

Yut-Lung nods quietly at the explanation, having calmed down a little. Maybe unwrapping the parcel to reveal a strange heap of flammable powder isn’t the most exciting thing, but he still wishes he could have seen.

“Oh. Thank you for telling –”

Shorter waves a sheepish hand. “It’s no biggie!”

The streets are busy around them, filled with people all hurrying about their own days, and Shorter looks unconcerned at the possibility of someone overhearing.

“Have you played with fireworks?” Yut-Lung asks after a pause as they navigate through a bustling wet market – a _real_ shortcut this time, Shorter admits, and not the relative secluded safety of the town’s alleyways.

“Yeah! All the kids get together around New Year’s and set them off in the park before running away. It’s great fun.”

“Can I join next time?” Yut-Lung asks with some hesitation. He’s still trying to figure out the number of months between now and New Year’s when Shorter answers. 

“O’course! As long as you don’t mind runnin’ away from the cops if they bother showing up,” Shorter chuckles, then adds, “Though, all of them are off celebrating anyway so –”

“I can run, I think.”

“Oh yeah?” And then Shorter takes off with a sprint, leaving Yut-Lung barely a second to shout in complaint before he’s setting off, too.

Frustratingly, Yut-Lung doesn’t catch up to Shorter despite the older boy constantly turning around to check he’s still following. Only when they reach Chang Dai does Shorter slow down, and Yut-Lung stumbles to a puffing halt.

“Guess you can, huh?” Shorter chuckles, panting himself. “Not fast enough to catch up to me, though.”

“You started early!”

“That’s life, kid.” He laughs again before ducking into the restaurant and Yut-Lung follows him over the threshold. He loiters at their usual table as Shorter makes his way over to the counter to prod at a scowling Nadia. Yut-Lung doesn’t intend to overhear their conversation, but snippets of it make their way to his ears regardless.

“You stay outta trouble?”

“Yes ma’am,” Shorter replies sarcastically.

Nadia sounds exasperated. “You know Ma gets all on my case whenever you get up to no good.”

“‘Cause I’m the delinquent infant child who can’t take care of himself?”

“Yes. You get paid yet?”

“Nah. Soon though.”

“What’re you gonna do if they cheat you of your money? And I swear you could get a better paying job _anywhere._ ”

“Hey! They’d never do me dirty like that – I _know_ the guys.” Shorter punctuates this statement with an emphatic gesture. “And I don’t wanna be stuck behind a counter all day like someone. Literally just drop off something a walk away and get paid? – _that’s_ the life.”

Nadia harrumphs in annoyance before changing the subject and Yut-Lung’s focus drifts to scan the rest of the restaurant while he waits for his friend. Not as busy in the afternoon, as usual.

Having gone through two days of this routine, Yut-Lung knows what to expect. Dinner will arrive sooner or later, a bustling affair at the smaller table to the side that they can call theirs. And then as their empty dishes start to be taken away, everyone moves on, busy with the rest of their evenings as he is expected to go home. 

Yut-Lung knows he has to return home eventually, but the urge to stay tonight is stronger than ever and he stares miserably at the wrinkled knees of his jeans as he restlessly kicks his legs back and forth. That is, until he remembers Shorter’s and Nadia’s promise – that there could be some hope for his situation.

He excitedly looks back up, to where the sibling pair are still conversing.

Nadia makes eye contact and idly waves at him. A little less hesitant now, Yut-Lung slides off the stool and walks over to Shorter’s side, where the older boy nods down at him with a word of greeting.

“What’s up?”

“Will – Can they beat up my brothers today?” He waits in eager silence as Nadia hides a smile behind one hand.

“Oh – uh, I haven’t actually asked about that yet,” Shorter says sheepishly, grimacing as he sees Yut-Lung’s face fall. “But we can head over there tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Yut-Lung nods. He can survive one more night, for sure – and then…

Feeling a little brighter already, he runs back to his stool with one last glance at Shorter and Nadia, who shrug at his rapid departure before resuming their conversation. All of a sudden, dinner can’t come sooner – if only for the fact that he can sooner treat his brothers to a taste of their own medicine. 

Yut-Lung feels his heart flutter in anticipation.

 

Soon enough, the moon rises to hang, glowing, in the sky, and Shorter mumbles distractedly to his mother with a mouth and a half full of food as Yut-Lung quietly finishes his food and readies himself to leave.

“I’ll be at the kitchen soon…”

They part ways quickly after that, Yut-Lung shivering a little in the cool night air, a complete contrast to the bustling warmth within Chang Dai. He runs back home.

The foyer is set to a comfortable temperature as always, but that doesn’t stop Yut-Lung shivering once more as he walks briskly to the staircase. No running within the house, even if there is no one around to see.

He rolls into bed early, not out of tiredness but a desire to see the day end as soon as possible. There is a similar urge to roll _under_ the bed instead, where he should be safer despite the mild collection of dust bunnies that have built up between weekly vacuumings. With a frown on his face, Yut-Lung scrunches his eyes shut and forces himself to go to sleep. Morning can’t come sooner.

 

Less than half a day later, Yut-Lung finds himself once more at the entrance of Chang Dai, this time with a wide grin on his face. He resists the urge to call out as he walks inside, to alert Shorter and excitedly remind him of that day’s plans. He circles the room once instead, peering at each table to see no sign of the other boy. The lady at the counter seems to recognise him, even if he doesn’t.

“You looking for Shorter?”

“Yes,” he nods.

“‘Kay.” She idly pushes away from the counter after a moment to peer into the kitchen.

Shorter emerges not long after, half a fried breadstick in his mouth. “Hey Lee,” he mumbles around it.

“Hello.” He tugs a hand out of his pocket to wave cheerfully, turning in mild confusion as Shorter walks past him.

“Just felt like headin’ outside for a bit,” he explains, crunching at his breadstick.

“Okay.”

Nearing noon, the streets of Chinatown are as busy as they always are, and for lack of a bench, Shorter hops up on a nearby electrical box to kick his feet against its metal doors and continuing chewing at his snack. Yut-Lung reaches his arms up to haul himself up the same way Shorter did, only to fruitlessly lift himself a mere few centimetres off the ground. He jumps a few times before staring dolefully up at the other boy.

“Help me up?”

“Hm?” Shorter looks away from his idle people-watching. “Oh, sure.” He gobbles down the rest of his breadstick and wipes his hands off before hopping back down.

Yut-Lung stretches his arms up as two hands grab him beneath the armpits and Shorter struggles to lift him up higher than halfway up the box. He scrabbles on top with his hands and feet and rolls into a sitting position as Shorter hops back on beside him.

With a tremendous yawn, the boy mumbles, “Sometimes I just gotta duck outside for a bit. Like, I bet you think Chang Dai’s the best and all what with the free food –” here he gives Yut-Lung a wink, “but _God_ does the place get boring real quick.”

“I like Chang Dai,” Yut-Lung nods in agreement, tapping his heels against the electrical box and marvelling at how much of the street he can see from this height.

“Lucky you tripped up right here, then,” Shorter grins.

Yut-Lung nods once more. With nothing to contribute, the conversation fades out in favour of watching the residents of Chinatown going about their business. Yut-Lung spends a large amount of time staring at a nearby trailer full of squawking chickens, the owner of the bicycle they are attached to having ducked into one of the stores. The brown and white little beasties fluff their feathers and continuously cluck up a racket, but nowhere near as loud as the sudden shouting match that has erupted beside him. He whips his head around to see Shorter gesturing rather animatedly at a man kneeling at the curbside.

“What racket? I think you’re yelling even louder, old man!”

The man doesn’t look pleased. “Old man?! You punk – you better pay for that once you break it and all our power goes out.”

_Break what?_ Yut-Lung looks around in confusion before hearing the loud _thunk!_ of Shorter’s heels whacking against metal. His own legs slow in their fidgety dance, a little guilty.

Shorter looks unconcerned. “Psh, it’s not gonna break. You just mind your own business, dude.”

Seemingly giving up, the man grumbles and turns away from where Shorter continues to rhythmically kick the metal doors.

“Is it going to break?” Yut-Lung asks. He doesn’t feel too safe this high off the ground, not when there’s apparently a chance of all hell breaking loose with a few extra kicks.

“Nah.”

“Oh.”

But Shorter looks bored after a while regardless, sitting still in contemplation before hopping back down to the pavement. “Might go back in, ring some guys up… You need a hand there?” He adds, seeing the uncertain look on Yut-Lung’s face as he gazes down at the ground a distance away.

“Yes please.”

He plops back down on the ground with, thankfully, barely a scratch. Shorter groans, shaking his wrists out.

“Sorry – Sing’s a bit lighter than you. And he bites if you try to carry him…” 

Yut-Lung follows that statement with eyes rounded in wonder and scampers beside Shorter back into Chang Dai. As it turns out, ‘ringing some guys up’ entails bothering the lady at the counter until she moves aside enough to let Shorter wrestle the phone handset into one hand and stab furiously at the buttons with his tongue sticking out in concentration. He appears to get the correct number on the third try.

“Hey, yeah, yeah can I speak to Fong?” He all but shouts into the mouthpiece. “Yeah, the kid. Say it’s Shorter.”

There’s a pause as whoever is on the phone tracks down this Fong kid, before Shorter starts up the conversation. The waitress beside him doesn’t look pleased to be sharing the counter with a loud eleven year old, but Yut-Lung remains interested, hanging onto every word. 

“Hey – yeah, I _know_ , yeah you guys interested in beating some randos up?” A pause, where Yut-Lung catches Shorter not-so-subtly dart a look at him. “Yeah o’course, but – uh – they might be rich? Free pickings and all that.”

An exaggerated frown creases his forehead. “Yes, I _know_ , but since when has that stopped us? Look, I don’t need a whole crew or anything, just enough to do some damage.”

“Your specialty?” He sighs. “Fiine, if you want to. Anything’s good. Yeah yeah – see you in a bit.”

Shorter carelessly slams the handset down after that, to two sets of curious eyes – one pretending not to be interested in his conversation, while Yut-Lung bounces excitedly up and down as Shorter extricates himself from behind the counter.

“What – What happened?”

“We-ell,” Shorter begins with a dramatic air, “Some of the guys are up to it, mainly ‘cos we all have nothing better to do anyways. They wanna hear about the place an’ the targets from you – or me, whatever – and decide whether they’re just gonna slash some tires or throw bricks or whatever.”

“Throw bricks at my brothers?”

Shorter purses his lips. “Um, if they happen to be behind whichever windows then sure. They’re a bit iffy on just randomly storming a house and beating people up ‘cos we dunno if they have guns, yeah?”

“You have a gun!” Yut-Lung protests. He could help sneak them inside whatever way possible; leave everyone’s bedroom doors wide open…

At Shorter’s doubtful expression and uncertain hum, he droops a little. “How ‘bout we see what everyone thinks later today when we meet up, okay?” Shorter gives his head a reassuring rub and Yut-Lung smiles.

“Okay.”

 

Their post-lunch expedition, having been long-awaited for, takes them swiftly down some busy streets and up a flight of stairs to a dimly-lit hole in the wall. With a few tatty couches scattered in a half-ring around a table, it could almost pass as a meeting room of sorts. 

Shorter plops down on an empty couch, nodding at the other teens in the room as Yut-Lung carefully sits beside him. The strangers around him are all intimidating in their stares, one raising a careless eyebrow at him. Yut-Lung shuffles closer to Shorter.

“Hey.” 

Shorter lazily echoes the greeting. All eyes are on him, having called the meeting, and one teen leans forward, elbows on the ripped knees of his jeans. Yut-Lung stares at the detail on his bright-green sneakers to avoid making eye contact.

“So what’s the deal? Who’s the kid?”

Shorter quickly launches into an explanation, Yut-Lung fidgeting with the fabric of his pants as vague details of his family matters are aired to the room. This soon devolves into a passionate discussion of just how much the lot of them enjoy vandalising property and general violence, and Yut-Lung watches the various bored faces morph into slight interest.

“Slash a few tires? Sure, why not.”  
“I mean, s’not like we have anything else to do…”

The hubbub of mumbled agreement disperses as the first teen tells a victorious-looking Shorter, “Guess we’ll go wreck some assholes.”

“Alright!”

“So whereabouts’ the place, kid?”

All eyes turn to Yut-Lung as he swallows past a dry throat and slowly recites his address from memory. He isn’t sure how to react when a few of the faces regard him with bewilderment.

“…Um – um. That’s where I live.” He finishes lamely.

“Isn’t that –” One guy sounds confused, while his neighbour leans forwards to shuffle through the pile of junk on the table, revealing a tatty street map. “What was the place again?”

Yut-Lung recites his address once more, to see the teen quickly track down the exact spot on the map and raise his head to frown at Yut-Lung.

“Shorter, who’d you say this kid was again?”

Shorter, apparently unaware of the slight tension that has crept into the room, shrugs carelessly. “Dunno. Found him on the street. Says his name’s Lee.”

“He’s one of _theirs?_ Dude!” 

Yut-Lung squirms further into the couch as understanding ripples quickly across the room. 

“The _Lee_ building – ?”  
“When’d they hire you as babysitter, Shorter?”  
“Can we get a ransom?”

Someone chortles at the last statement. “What, and have them gun down all our families the next minute?”

Yut-Lung uncomfortably redirects his gaze at his feet instead when the teenagers around the room all scrutinise him with varying degrees of hostility and confusion. Shorter curses next to him.

“Shit, guys, I didn’t know okay?”

“Are you gonna suggest fightin’ the president himself next?” One of them heckles.

Shorter looks peeved. “ _Alright_ , I get it. Not my fault he was being real secretive about it. We’ll just go slash some _other_ tires, no biggie.” He stands up to leave, tugging Yut-Lung with him.

“What’s a _biggie_ is how you accidentally kidnapped some rich kid,” a voice comes from behind them, but Shorter stomps back out, uncaring.

In contrast, Yut-Lung peers over one shoulder at the group of laughing teens, turning back around when a bend in the corridor hides them from view.

“You weren’t kidding us, were you?” Shorter asks when they silently step back outside. “Bein’ related to the Lees and all.”

“Um –”

“Oh, whatever.” He waves him off with a hand. “Sure was a big waste of time though.”

“Why?” Yut-Lung genuinely asks. He’s still not too sure why they made such a hasty exit, or why Shorter has such an uncomfortable expression on his face. 

Shorter sighs. “Well… I mean, you should know this if you’re related to them anyways…” Yut-Lung offers only a confused expression as Shorter continues. “The Lees, well, they basically own Chinatown, right? So it’s obviously not a great idea even talking too loud by their – uh, _your_ place, let alone beating anyone up.”

“Oh.” Yut-Lung replies a second late, mood tanking even further. He drags his feet along the pavement as they walk. “Not even a little beating?”

“Nope. Don’t exactly have a death wish.” Shorter doesn’t sound up to discussing the topic further, and changes the subject a moment later. “So what’s the deal with a kid like you wandering the streets? You doing somethin’ for them or what?

Yut-Lung shakes his head at the second question. “No – they don’t like me leaving the house…”

“Wow, let’s hope no one hears about you bein’ in Chang Dai all day then,” Shorter remarks a little bitterly. “I dunno about you, but I am def not looking to pick a fight with any Lees, alright? So like, you best tell them to stay away.”

Yut-Lung meets his eyes for a split second before looking away awkwardly, to catch a glimpse of a nearby street intersection that he recognises. He knows the way home from here, even if it’s the last thing he wants to think about.

“Um – um, I can go home?”

Shorter blinks. “What, now? Sure, whatever. Do you what you want, kid.” He continues walking off at a leisurely pace as Yut-Lung splits off in another direction. 

Shorter is nowhere to be seen when Yut-Lung finally turns around to peek at the streets behind him, and resigned, he darts through the streets and around its pedestrians until he reaches that same address ingrained into his – and now Shorter’s – memory. 

The guard looks mildly surprised to be letting him inside so early in the day, but greets him with the same monotonous line regardless. 

“Welcome home, young master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya... update schedule is uh not regular but im trying to write a min of 500 words per day (yes its pitiful i kno but that Who Me Be) so uh lets hope for ch4 soon-ish yes


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> past me, thinking fsr 1 chapter a week was realistic: ??? 
> 
> anywys take this Humble offering

The entire business with the Lee kid had been a little bit strange from the very beginning, Shorter has to admit. Not their initial meeting - he’s befriended people after bumping into them on the street. Lee’s insistence on remaining a constant presence around Chang Dai, however, was some kinds of weird, and now that Shorter knows the truth, he can feel the chills running down his spine. A spike of protective indignation rises in his chest too, when he thinks about Lee snooping around their restaurant for no damn reason.

Trust the Lees to have informants everywhere. According to everyone, their control over Chinatown is terrifying and absolute, and the number of people who owe the family money are fewer than ever after a recent violent crackdown. Shorter wonders what Lee’s job is.

Probably something sneakier than Shorter’s own skulking in alleyways to deliver strange parcels. One thing though, still strikes him as strange, and Shorter mulls over the fact through breakfast.

What was with the Lee kid begging them to terrorise and ransack one of the most _obvious_ Lee family residences? Granted, Shorter hadn’t recognised the place by its address alone, but everyone knows to avoid the big place on Canal. He had peeked through its towering gates once before in curiosity, to be quickly shooed to safety by an older friend.

Anyway, did he really think they were dumb enough to immediately run to his requested address, throw Molotov cocktails over the wall, and get themselves all killed without a second thought? Shorter tries to imagine an evil, calculating grin on the kid’s face. It doesn’t really fit.

It would make more sense on Sing’s face, the little menace violently kicking his feet opposite Shorter. Two babysitting sessions in a matter of days – he has no clue what he’s done to deserve this punishment, but apparently Sing had requested him specifically.

“What’s the deal, asshole? There’s nothin’ to do here.”

“You have a gun.” Sing grins toothily. “And you’re dumb.”

“I’m _what_?” Shorter barks loud enough for Nadia at the counter to shoot him a look.

 

She had asked an off-handed question about Lee just the other day, after he stopped showing up. Shorter offered a silent shrug before remembering that it wasn’t one of those ‘don’t-tell-Nadia’ situations.

“Turns out he’s part of the Lee family – y’know, _thems_.”

Nadia’s paling expression was more dramatic than the confused whirlwind of thoughts in his own head. “What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno. Something sneaky, I bet.” Shorter shoots a cautious look around the room to emphasise his point, and feels in his gut that Lee _had_ to be up to no good. Not that there’s much to be sneaking a look at, in all honesty.

“Shit… should we tell Ma ‘n Pa? In case someone higher up comes snooping around after him.”

Shorter grimaces. He can imagine the resultant chaos already, and it doesn’t sound like a wise idea to rope his parents into something that’s entirely his fault. Or if no one even shows up – the thought of the lecture he’d get for causing them pointless worry already makes his head ache.

“I… guess not.”

And that had been the end of that, though the two siblings shoot each other wary looks every time a mildly-important looking man walks into the restaurant in the following days. The usual customers are the family type, or exhausted labourers working at nearby sites, so any well-dressed man is a rare sight and thankfully remains so.

Not that Shorter keeps perfect track – he dashes outside more often than not to meet up with his friends now that he doesn’t have a six year old hanging off his arm. But undoubtedly, Sing is more of a problem than Lee ever was. 

His friends say as much.

“When’d they put you in charge of babies full time?”

Shorter frowns – it’s just been the two instances, though he has to agree Sing isn’t the best company. He could just dump him on Nadia and call it a day, but the possible repercussions would be far from pleasant. Groaning, Shorter reaches for the length of rope hastily wrapped around Sing’s waist to properly secure him to the nearest bike rack. He then darts back to his friends, who are surveying the entire scene with amusement.

“All of you’ve had to deal with him before, anyways,” he retorts. “I just got unlucky again.”

And while this is true, they are not often unlucky enough to get saddled with Sing two times in a row like this. Shorter casts a dejected look at the infant child _thing_ who has already got both legs onto the rack to swing himself upside down and wonders who gets to decide which lucky bastard has to put with him each day.

But he’s soon distracted from this when a few more kids dash over with armfuls of skateboards and a few planks-with-wheels, to gesture at the nearby basketball court.

“It’s no skate park, but like, it still works?”

“ _Awesome._ ”

There are only a few experts among them, Shorter not included, so he prides himself on managing to stay upright and keep the skin on his knees intact for the entire afternoon. Their supplier keeps faulty boards to one side for them to use for free, so no one complains about the crappier contraptions and their splinter-loaded planks. Shorter winces at the sight of the younger kids picking wood out of their palms.

He does another few laps around the court, helps up one guy who looks like he’s struggling to even stand on a stationary board, then whirls around when someone shouts his name.

“Shorter! Your kid’s getting away!”

As far as he had been aware, Sing had been having a great time swinging upside down from the bike rack beside the basketball court. Now though, there’s nothing but a curl of rope left dangling from a nearby bicycle while the menace himself is dashing off towards the main road.

Shorter curses. “Sing! Come back here, goddamnit.” 

Thankfully, his skateboard’s a lot faster than Sing’s short little legs and Shorter soon catches up, tripping off his board as he skids to a halt. 

“Can you not, like, behave?” He asks as Sing struggles in the vice grip he has on the back of the kid’s hoodie.

“Can you not like _tie me up_!” Sing repeats in a pitchy and infuriating voice. He has a point, but Shorter was never the best at looking after children.

“But we’re just tryin’ to have fun, alright?”

Sing pouts. “Can I have a skateboard?” 

“I – fine.” Shorter acquiesces, though he’s tempted to give the bike rack idea another try.

“Great!” Sing snatches the skateboard right out of his unexpecting hand, throws it and himself onto the ground to land belly-first on the board, and paddles away with all four limbs.

Shorter gapes, too slow to react. The other guys look equally confused, but not bothered enough to shoo Sing off the court.

“Why’s your kid on the loose, Shorter?” One person asks, and Shorter can only shrug.

“Are there any extra boards?”

 

Several of them, Sing included, troop back to Chang Dai for dinner afterwards and occupy a big rowdy round table while Nadia gives them all the stink-eye. Shorter’s parents are iffy about handing out free food when it will lead to hordes of kids coming around for every meal, so they all fish around in their pockets for loose change and crumpled notes while poking at the menu. Shorter pouts at the realisation that he’ll have to pay for Sing too, and possibly for any damage he does to the restaurant.

Said child idly kicks his legs back and forth in the air.

“Why doesn’t he have one o’ those baby chairs?” One of his friends asks.

“He –” Shorter doesn’t have a chance to finish his sentence when Sing leans forwards aggressively.

“‘Cos I’m old enough to fuck your bitch, _asshole!_ ” He ends on a very non-intimidating squeaky scream, but it doesn’t stop them all from being stunned into silence. There are a tense few seconds before someone bursts into laughter and then the whole table devolves into raucous yelling.

Sing crosses his arms over his chest.

“Guess he’s one of us, then.” They agree, stifling more laughter.

The rest of the evening continues in its regular loud and squabbly manner, one of the guys catcalling Nadia before Shorter all but leaps over the table to whack him over the head. 

“Have better taste, man!” 

When he can take a break from wolfing down his meal, dodging _other_ people’s meals, and coming up with the most outrageous crime they could pull off (setting off fireworks in a bank, stealing all the money, and running back out before anyone can spot them in between the flashes), Shorter quietly decides to himself that Lee wouldn’t have fit in with this crowd anyway. To his right, Sing is standing up on a stool and defending himself with a plate as the others lob food at him. Shorter wonders how quiet the meals are in that fancy mansion – probably dreary and boring, if any of the historical dramas he’s seen on TV with their rich families and sprawling households have an ounce of truth in them.

He’s jolted from his thoughts when Sing takes a meatball to the eye and dramatically topples backwards to writhe on the floor, wailing. Some of his friends look slightly concerned, but Shorter waves them off.

“He’s just faking – he’s a lil’ shit.”

Sing screams even louder, until some of the nearby customers (who had already been putting up with their nonsense for the past hour) turn to glare angrily at them. Shorter can only shrug in half-hearted apology.

“Ow ow ow, it _hurts!_ ”

“Stop being a big baby!”

Sing sobs, curling into himself and rubbing meatball sauce all over his face.

“Can someone shut that kid up!” Someone barks, and at the awkward looks on his friends’ faces, Shorter swallows his pride to kneel beside Sing and give his shoulder a reluctant shake.

“C’mon, get up. I know you’re alright.”

“I’m nooot,” Sing whines miserably. “Hurts…”

Swallowing an annoyed reply, Shorter helps Sing upright and moves his pudgy hand away from the apparent meatball wound. Sing’s upset expression is somewhat obscured by all the sauce.

Shorter sighs. “Sing…”

He doesn’t jerk back in time to avoid the half-mashed meatball that comes flying out of Sing’s other hand.

“Fuck _you!_ ” Sing screeches, before dashing off to god knows where.

The table immediately bursts into laughter, as Shorter sheepishly heads to the bathroom in his defeat. He rinses sauce off his face with ice cold water and frowns at himself in the mirror. _Stupid Sing…_

As much as he tries to complain that babysitting’s not his thing, Shorter’s one of the people with the responsibility of juggling this feral child, or else another one as the ever-busy adults see fit. They should think about shoving Sing off to wherever the Lee kid got his education, Shorter considers. Though _that_ institution might also kick him out for too much swearing.

Sing is nowhere to be seen when he emerges from the bathroom, so Shorter carelessly kicks the extra stool aside and sits back down with his friends.

“So. Let’s pretend all that shit didn’t just happen.”

 

The rest of the week proceeds in the same manner, and Shorter quickly finds himself back in his routine before Lee showed up on his doorstep, oftentimes sitting outside Chang Dai for an entire afternoon with his favourite fizzy. To keep an eye out for any more rich and sneaky Chinese business… people tripping outside of their store, he tells Nadia. Both of them knows that’s not true, and she rolls her eyes at the statement.

“Thank you for helping protect the restaurant, I guess.”

“You’re welcome!” Shorter mock-salutes, forgetting about the can in his hand for a second and knocking it against his forehead. He dashes outside to the sound of Nadia’s laughing.

As it turns out, nothing dramatic happens as he whiles the hours away loitering and people-watching – two of his favourite hobbies. He catches a pigeon shitting on someone’s jacket mid-flight, as well as two men fighting about a box of groceries left out on the sidewalk. Shorter stomps his empty can into a crushed ball of metal in satisfaction at an afternoon well spent.

 

It’s when Shorter is least expecting it – his brain filled with a lot of other things, but none concerning _that_ kid – that Lee runs into Chang Dai to accost him halfway through dinner.

He’s his same old distraught self, hair in a messy ponytail and tears dripping onto that orange t-shirt Shorter lent him a while back. Shorter tentatively swallows his mouthful of rice as the kid runs over, barrelling through the crowd.

“Hey –”

“I’m sorry for not telling the truth!” He wails, sucking in a desperate lungful of air to continue, “And my name is actually Yut-Lung and I hate my brothers and they hate me too and c-can I stay?”

“Er –” Yut-Lung makes a pitiful picture as he crawls onto the nearest stool and waits for Shorter’s answer, lip wobbling.

“Er – uh, so you’re not actually working for your family? To like, sneak into Chang Dai or somethin’?” 

Yut-Lung rapidly shakes his head no.

“A-Alright.” Shorter munches at another bite of food to give himself some time to think. “I’m not sure about the whole _staying_ thing, but like, you’re welcome back here I guess.”

Yut-Lung sniffs gratefully.

 

The last week had been nothing short of a nightmare, from Yut-Lung’s point of view. He settles atop his stool and tries to focus on his surroundings and _Chang Dai_ – anything but the stifling interior of the Lee mansion.

It hadn’t gotten _worse_ , not exactly, with his usual daily classes and mealtimes and horde of servants milling about. But after knowing that there’s something better than eating by his lonesome in the dining hall or at the kitchen table, the thought of his favourite meals and desserts barely bring him any joy – though neither appear on the menu often. Yut-Lung’s elder brothers get to do all the picking and choosing, even if they never seem to be around when he heads down for meals.

Which is for the better, because Hua-Lung is going through a bullying streak, and Wang-Lung has taken on the role of head of the family ever since their father died, which means no one dares to criticise anything he does. Yut-Lung sighs at the thought.

His other brothers might be able to beat some sense into Wang-Lung, but all of them are overseas and he can count the number of times he’s met any of them on one hand. But on the plus side, he only has to avoid two people (and all of the assorted guards) to sneak outside.

Unable to go back to Chang Dai and drowning in the absolute boredom of his sterile bedroom, Yut-Lung makes it his mission to head to that one playground he had visited with Shorter. The toy room within the mansion is entertaining enough, but when all his memories are of playing in the room under his mother’s loving gaze, he has little urge to step back inside.

The journey there seems lengthier than when he walked together with Shorter, but Yut-Lung doesn’t turn back, navigating the streets with steadfast determination. He is soon greeted by the brightly coloured equipment, slides and monkey bars and various platforms beckoning him to climb to his heart’s content.

That is, until he hears the voices coming from the playground in front of him, the loud shouts of what look to be, upon closer inspection, teenage boys. Yut-Lung creeps past the gate to the playground and peeks at the sight before him.

A half-dozen lanky teens are idly lounging on the playground apparatus, each clutching cigarettes and discussing something or other in loud, offensive voices. Yut-Lung freezes where he stands, unsure if he wants to sneak onto the one free swing or go elsewhere. One teenager quickly makes that decision for him upon spotting his diminutive shadow in the corner.

“Hey! Who’s that?”

“N-Nobody,” he mumbles, loud enough for only himself to hear, and turns tail without a second thought.

Back on the main street, Yut-Lung frowns at his own cowardice and fidgets with the urge to turn back. The teens hadn’t been _that_ loud, but without Shorter as a buffer by his side, he doesn’t want to trespass into their territory and anger anyone by accident. Likewise, he never tries to enter his brothers’ private quarters, or step through the corridors outside their rooms if he can help it.

With a pout jutting from his lip and a drag in his step, Yut-Lung meanders his way back through the streets, pausing when he passes by a meagre patch of grass that could qualify as a park. He plops his bottom on one of the few benches and rests.

The one pigeon that inhabits the park is overly friendly and distracts him from his thoughts for just a while, before hopping away for another potential source of food. Alone on his bench, Yut-Lung kicks his dangling feet and stares listlessly at the nearby traffic for long enough to decide that maybe the mansion is better than doing nothing in the middle of New York City all day. The strange looks from the old man sitting on the other bench in the park don’t help, either.

He hurries off when the man looks about to start up a conversation.

 

Back home, there are conversations he can no longer avoid. Yut-Lung sits at the dining table – because Wang-Lung is suddenly in a familial mood – and picks at his food in front of three pairs of watchful eyes he’d rather not make eye contact with. Not that Wang-Lung’s wife is currently paying him the slightest attention, too busy doting over her husband to care about the kids at the table.

Hua-Lung rolls his eyes at the table.

They eat in silence for a while, with the exception of the married couple at the table, and Yut-Lung breathes a sigh of relief. He stares at his rice and tries to decide whether he wants to wolf it all down and ask to be excused sooner, or eat only a few grains as his appetite dictates. He raises his head from this dilemma when an expectant tone rings across the table. Wang-Lung’s asking a question, Yut-Lung soon realises.

“I _said_ , how has our youngest brother been spending his time?”

“Um.” Yut-Lung stammers, looking around the table in a panic. “I – uh.”

“I thought you said he learned how to talk already,” his sister-in-law titters, and Yut-Lung turns an embarrassed red. Curse whoever made family dinners a thing – he wants to push his food away and storm out of the room, if that wouldn’t have its consequences.

“I – um – I have been learning acupuncture. And herbal medicine. And –”

His brother interrupts with a terse, “As is expected. And what of your free time?”

Distinguished members of the Lee family are expected to use their time for _productive_ matters, especially in their formative years. Yut-Lung knows for a fact that Hua-Lung would rather sneak off to visit this girlfriend or that girlfriend, but apparently he’s old enough to not require as much disciplining. Swallowing nervously, he prepares an answer.

“I – I have gone outside to –”

Hua-Lung snickers, and he loses his train of thought. Something about explaining the benefit of walks and fresh air, as if his brother would believe a single word.

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen.” Wang-Lung waves a careless hand. “You’d think the youngest Lee heir would think twice about running around in someone’s donated rags, but what do I know?”

“Seen?” Yut-Lung yelps in shock, forgetting his mealtime etiquette to jerk in his seat. A few grains of rice scatter onto the table from his raised chopsticks, but he is too distracted to notice. What do they _know_ about Chang Dai, Yut-Lung frets. He remembers Shorter’s words, worried about people snooping about the place.

His brother remains calm, though raises a stern brow. “Did you think the family does _not_ keep tabs on you at all times? With your heritage, it’s a surprise anyone even lets you run about like that.”

Fuming at the offhanded comment, Yut-Lung can only nod. He takes another miniscule bite of food, now only pretending to eat as he waits for his brother to continue.

“And discipline can only do so much – you wouldn’t want that, right?”

Yut-Lung shakes his head, not entirely sure where the conversation is going.

Wang-Lung laughs. “Of course. So, I propose we instead see what you decide to waste your time doing and act accordingly, regardless of what money and resources Father seems to see fit to allot to you as his son.”

Yut-Lung cocks his head in confusion, unsure if something of great importance had just been decided. His brothers’ words are never to be taken lightly, but when he barely understood what was said in the first place…

Yut-Lung nods stiffly when an expectant look is directed at him and goes back to picking at his food.

So is he allowed to return to Chang Dai or not?

 

Wang-Lung doesn’t offer any clarification on the subject in the following days, instead all but disappearing from the mansion to go about doing his usual business running the family. That one shared meal had diverted in a similar fashion, the two adults at the table turning to discuss business matters that Yut-Lung could barely comprehend, until he finally found the courage to excuse himself.

He lay awake in bed that night, waiting for a foreboding shadow to come creeping around the door. But no one appeared, and Yut-Lung fell into restless sleep. Sleep doesn’t come easy the following nights either, not when his anxiety so easily runs rampant.

Hua-Lung brings up the matter once, leaving a warning that leaves Yut-Lung quaking in his fluffy slippers.

“Watch out, ‘cause you’re done for. Big bro said so.”

“I – he – ?”

After that, he keeps even more of an eye out for anything life-threatening coming his way. Yut-Lung survives this way for the next week, until his appetite dwindles to nothing and he regularly wakes from sleep to the sandpapery feel of air rasping down his throat and a dizzy nausea in every part of his body. 

Despite the warnings and the reminders, he still can’t find it within him to focus wholeheartedly on his lessons, or to dedicate his free time to expanding his studies. Restlessly kicking his feet in the library, Yut-Lung cradles his face in his hands and peeks at the tomes of near-illegible script through his fingers.

 _Stupid_.

The pages and spines are well-worn, not because of their antiquity – they had been newly purchased when the library was first stocked not too many years ago – but because of the apparent studiousness of his brothers and other relatives. Yut-Lung wrinkles his nose and tries to imagine Hua-Lung in the same position as himself. It’s difficult, because he’s never actually seen Hua-Lung in the library, despite his teenaged brother having plenty of classes himself.

_Stupid stupid._

It is after several consecutive days of this forced routine that Yut-Lung finally gives in to his daydreams and _escapes_.

 

Back at Chang Dai, Shorter seems to approach the situation with restrained curiosity.

“So why’d you even come to Chang Dai in the first place?”

“Accident.” And it truly was, even if Shorter still seems to want to think Yut-Lung had other, more nefarious, intentions.

“Oh. Then why din’t you tell us the whole truth?”

“I… don’t know.” He rubs at the drying tear tracks on his face, and recalls a conflicted mess of emotions clouding his every decision. Something about his brothers, as always…

“Huh.” Shorter picks at his food for a moment, thoughtful. “Alright.”

And that concludes the discussion, Yut-Lung settling back into his strange little place within Chang Dai, following Shorter around wherever the older boy will let him go.

“Oh. You’re back,” Nadia says to him, and Yut-Lung beams.

 

The days proceed mostly as before, though there are of course little changes here and there. Yut-Lung brings along his pocket money whenever he can to repay the meals, and Shorter’s parents, any time he bumps into them, seem to eye him with a subtle caution. Because of his family’s reputation. 

Yut-Lung hopes his family members themselves never come pay him a visit at Chang Dai – just the thought of Wang-Lung knowing his whereabouts at any time of the day sends a shudder down his spine. But, and Yut-Lung silently mumbles an apology to Shorter and his family at this, he would rather spend his days here than in the prison of the mansion, going stir-crazy.

He soon comes to know every corner of Chang Dai from back to front, but doesn’t bore of the familiar surroundings. Busy as Shorter is, and not always willing to have an infant (Yut-Lung frowns at the term) chained to his ankles, Yut-Lung is sometimes left at the restaurant with only Nadia for company.

“I don’t mind,” he replies, and Shorter exhales in loud relief.

“Thank _God!_ Sing, y’know, can literally not be left alone for a single minute. And Nadia always disappears when I try to ask her…”

Nadia disappears into the kitchen that very moment with a roll of her eyes.

“Oh.” Yut-Lung feels his chest puff up with pride at the statement. “Because I’m older than him.”

“Does that mean you can babysit him for me instead?”

Yut-Lung harrumphs at the satisfied look on Shorter’s face.

 

But as it turns out, he has to deal with said child eventually. One afternoon, Yut-Lung is leafing through one of his hefty botany tomes at their usual table. For some reason, he finds he can concentrate much better in the different surroundings, despite the book being its same old boring self. He traces an idle finger down the lines of one detailed illustration of a flower when Sing announces his arrival, apparently having been tossed into the restaurant by the scruff of his shirt. Shorter disappears out of view just as Sing rushes over to accost him, and Yut-Lung shoots a glare in the direction of the entrance.

“Hey! Lee!”

“Hello…”

“What are you doing!” His every word sounds like an adrenaline-fuelled outburst, and Yut-Lung purses his lips for a moment before pointing at his book. 

“I’m reading about the properties of the wolfberry.”

“Oh okay.” He nods once, before a flicker of recognition appears on his face. “Wolf?”

“…Berry.”

“Does it look like a wolf!”

“Um. You can make them into a dessert?”

Sing blinks widely, silent.

At that, Yut-Lung goes back to his studies, trying to cram as much information into his brain with this dozenth read through. He has a quiz the next day, and as tempting as it is to ignore his assessments as he does his brother’s warnings, Yut-Lung trusts the feeling in his gut that tells him there are serious consequences if he shirks his studies. Frowning, he ignores the curious little face in his periphery and focuses on the wall of text before him.

Until Sing pipes up, unable to stay silent for too long, “What’s that?” A stubby finger pokes at a detailed picture of a leaf, and Yut-Lung resists the urge to tug the book towards his chest.

“A leaf.”

Sing sticks his bottom lip out. “I know that! ‘m not dumb.”

“Uhuh?” At the outburst, Yut-Lung feels a sudden defensiveness rise up in his chest. A result of their stilted encounters so far, maybe, and he crosses his arms over the book. “Then did you know that it’s used in traditional medicine? And has anti… antioxidants? And –”

Unbidden, everything he has been trying furiously to remember comes spilling forth in a babble of broken sentences and fragmented details, until Yut-Lung is gesticulating more in frustration at his studies themselves than an urge to one-up Sing.

The kid himself blinks in confusion, once more struck dumb.

“…and that’s why you _are_ dumb!”

“Huh?” Sing stares at him with mouth slightly agape, expression one of pure bewilderment.

Ignoring his confusion, Yut-Lung continues, “So go do your dumb things and leave me alone!”

At that, he turns back to his textbook, hands smoothing over the pages before once more squinting at the details crammed into each paragraph of script. He narrows his eyes as Sing shuffles onto the nearest stool after a silent minute, but quickly turns back to the business before him.

“…Uh,” Sing mumbles in the relative quiet of the restaurant – not exactly peaceful, when there are always customers occupying nearby tables, but enough for Yut-Lung to focus on the pages. 

Yut-Lung ignores him.

“…Is being not dumb fun?”

The question takes him aback, and Yut-Lung looks up to properly regard the fidgety kid beside him. He feels mature beyond his years all of a sudden, clearing his throat as he thinks of an answer, and Yut-Lung makes a note to remind Shorter once more that the two of them _aren’t_ comparable in age.

“It’s not fun, _actually._ You have to learn lots of things and remember them all if you want to be a proper adult.” He grins a little at the moue of disappointment on Sing’s face. “So you should just stay dumb.”

“Oh…” Sing seems to process that statement for a solid few seconds, before he looks back up with a frown. “Wait, I’m not gonna do what you tell me!”

Yut-Lung recoils from the aggressive finger in his face. “Huh?” This is cutting into his study time, he idly remembers, though Yut-Lung knows that this time would have been equally wasted if he were back at the mansion. He shrugs to himself, grateful for the distraction from his tedium if not still irritated.

“So now you _gotta_ help me be not dumb!” Sing declares, to which Yut-Lung can only respond in silent confusion. Sing then clarifies, “To beat up Shorter! And you!”

Yut-Lung struggles to see the reasoning behind any of his words. “W-Why…” 

Sing prods at the textbook. “Because you have that book of smarts right there! So you gotta.”

He doesn’t _gotta_ do anything, and Yut-Lung frowns to himself as he flips to the next page. Sing’s sudden quest to become some kind of intellectual strikes him as hilarious, but if it will stop him from being a nuisance…

Yut-Lung hands over a sheet of paper and pencil with mild reluctance, before channelling the spirit of his tutor to the best of his efforts. “Okay, so now copy with me –”

“Gotcha!” Sing yelps, and turns to scribble furiously at his paper before Yut-Lung has begun to recite any of the million facts he’s trying to remember.

“O-Okay.” Yut-Lung watches with some amazement as the dark grey lines on his increasingly wrinkly piece of paper soon form themselves into an approximation of the five-petaled flower beside the text he’s studying, complete with stamens and anthers and a little stalk that soon grows into a long, winding thing as Sing exercises his imagination beyond what is drawn in the book. 

He proudly holds it up in Yut-Lung’s face after a few minutes of concentrated doodling, features folded into a tiny frown and tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m not dumb now, am I?”

“…No.”

“Cool!”

With that, Yut-Lung goes back to his studying, and Sing to leaning over his arm every other second to peer at the illustrations within his book.

 

Shorter returns to such a sight, making a little wheezy noise of confusion that has Yut-Lung briefly looking up from his book. In truth, he longs for any and every distraction to keep him from his reading for as long as possible, but an annoying voice in his head reminds him of the consequences of failing this test, or the next, or – 

Shorter’s voice pulls his from his thoughts. “So, what are you kiddies up to?” He sounds falsely cheerful, and on his face Yut-Lung can see nothing but incredulity.

“Studying.” Yut-Lung replies, as Sing screams from beside him:

“Bein’ not dumb! I’m gonna be so smart, Shorter, and then I’m gonna beat you up!!”

“Oh. Fantastic.” Shorter hesitates for moment before approaching Yut-Lung’s side of the table. “So, uh, you guys handlin’ it okay the two of you?

“Yes,” Yut-Lung confidently replies. He’s old enough to take care of a kid that Shorter can barely manage _and_ himself, and the thought brings a smile to his face.

Shorter shoots a pair of finger-guns at him, lopsided smile on his face, and soon disappears to elsewhere within Chang Dai.

 

A good hour or so later, and the two of them together have gotten through a good many pages of Yut-Lung’s stack of scrap paper – mainly Sing, wishing to give each of his masterpieces their own blank spread of A4. As Yut-Lung tucks away his final page of poorly handwritten notes, shaking out his sore hands and shoulders, Sing lifts his head to blearily make eye contact. The pencil is grasped loosely in his small hand.

“Huh?”

“Are you finished drawing? So I can put the book away.” 

“Oh, um –” He muffles a yawn, then stretches and bares his tonsils to the world as obscenely as possible. Yut-Lung watches this spectacle for a good second or so before looking away. 

“Um, yeah.” Sing mumbles, patting at the piece of paper he’s just creased in his yawning fit. 

At that, Yut-Lung packs everything up in a neat pile as Sing beside him very rapidly falls asleep, sprawled across the tabletop. He gives Sing one last glance before running off to find Shorter.

 

Dinner later that evening is a rowdier affair, with Yut-Lung and Sing sitting on one side of the table while Shorter and his friends take the opposite half. Nadia had stopped by to sit next to Sing after the kid excitedly waved her over, and Yut-Lung shovels rice into his mouth to the sound of Shorter and his friends cracking jokes, while Sing proudly shows off each piece in his portfolio of crumpled papers. Nadia’s words of praise are tinged with some disbelief.

“Is this like, from those books you’re always reading, Yut-Lung?”

“Yes,” he nods, and Nadia looks Sing up and down, impressed. 

“Wow. And here I thought all he knew how to do was scream. Guess we’ll not kick him out onto the streets then… Anyway, isn’t he Shorter’s responsibility?”

The boy in question continues to converse loudly with his friends, avoiding Nadia’s judgmental stare. 

“I don’t mind helping,” Yut-Lung pipes up.

Nadia hums. “Well, that’s very generous of you. I’d be running away as fast as possible if I were you.”

They both look at Sing continuing to eat without pause, until the sudden silence makes him look up. “Wha – ?”

“Nothing.”

 

Even if Yut-Lung feels a little upset at the idea of having Sing foisted on him, he has to admit it’s easier than trying to blend in with Shorter’s mismatch group of friends. For one, none of them seem to follow him around like a baby bird as Yut-Lung is wont to do.

And Sing’s not _that_ bad. Not always.

Still, Yut-Lung can’t help looking away from his work when Sing goes on his third rampage of the day, once more clambering up Shorter’s frame until the older boy gives in and promises to piggyback him around the room _once_. And as always, it ends as soon as Sing jerks on the longer parts of Shorter’s hair, yelling an enthusiastic ‘Giddy up!’, to then land bruisingly on the ground as Shorter shakes him off.

Yut-Lung turns back to his studies when Sing starts wailing in faux agony. Shorter knows to ignore him by now, and Sing has to pick himself back up after a minute. 

But aside from the usual bumps in the road, Shorter seems to deem Sing _tolerable_ enough to invite to their family’s New Year celebrations – when Chang Dai is closed to all customers and instead filled to the brim with a mix of family and friends. At least, that’s what Shorter excitedly tells Yut-Lung.

“Can I come too?”

A look of confusion appears on Shorter’s face. “Don’t you, uhh, have your own family thing to go to?”

“I don’t want to go,” Yut-Lung admits.

“Well then… I don’t see why not.” Shorter brightens. “And you can keep Sing out of trouble!”

“I-I guess.” Though the words sound reluctant, inwardly Yut-Lung is beaming from ear to ear. Finally, he has a chance to escape the stiff formality that surrounds the usual celebrations, stifling even when his mother was there to accompany him. His brothers never look too thrilled to be all cooped up in the same building with however many of their extended relatives, and Yut-Lung feels relief that he’s not the only one uncomfortable. It doesn’t make the process any more enjoyable, of course.

And now that his mother is gone… 

He shakes himself, brushing aside the unpleasant memories in favour of the excitement that fills him at the thought of Chang Dai decked out in New Year’s decorations and filled with ‘the most _amazing_ food’, as Shorter emphatically puts it.

Yut-Lung thinks the food is already pretty good, but Shorter’s enthusiasm leaves him hungering for more. New Year’s is still a week and a half away, but for once, Yut-Lung wishes it were _now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didnt put a chapter summary bc idk what this is about
> 
> who wrote this
> 
> what
> 
> update: ch5 will take longer than usu to come out bc ive been busy with trips + stuff and basically not getting the opportunity to write regularly.... Blease god help me write ch5 Somewhat quickly


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops its taken a solid month to get this chapter out since ive been having a busy holiday... lets hope the next one comes along a little more smoother
> 
> wrow nearly 8k... have i written a chapter this long b4

The date arrives quickly, Yut-Lung having watched Shorter’s mother tear a sheet of paper from the calendar day after day until a big ’JAN 31’ is finally revealed. The Saturday in question follows the normal schedule only until after his morning of classes, before proceeding to New Year festivities from mid-afternoon. Of course, Yut-Lung doesn’t plan on staying around the mansion during any of that business.

He wakes bright and early, dragging his curtains open with a genuine smile on his face. Refraining from jumping up and down as the excitable feeling in his chest urges him to, Yut-Lung quickly slips into his normal clothes. He hugs an additional embroidered jacket to his chest – Shorter having mentioned dressing up, only if he wants – before bounding downstairs and deftly bypassing the dining hall in favour of tearing out the front door. The guards do look a little concerned, but they make no move to stop him. Despite this, Yut-Lung still makes sure to run away before anyone else can even think of herding him back inside.

As expected, he arrives to a Chang Dai still in the throes of properly waking up, with only Nadia present in the main room to mind the gaggle of customers scarfing down their breakfasts. She regards Yut-Lung with a half-asleep expression as he approaches the counter.

“Hi!”

She blinks. “Oh. Hey.”

“When are the New Year celebrations?” Yut-Lung exclaims more than asks, standing on his tippy-toes and reaching for the countertop in an attempt to look at Nadia eye-to-eye. It doesn’t work very well.

She hums at the question. “Not yet, kid. Come back in the afternoon – that’s when we’re setting up.”

Just like at home, then. Yut-Lung can’t help but be a little disappointed that he has to wait, but he has nothing else to do. 

“Oh, okay. I’ll stay here,” he decides.

“Sure thing.”

And with that, he takes his seat as usual, though not before asking Nadia for a pencil and some scrap paper. Yut-Lung has to admit there’s a lot of fun to be had in the activity, which Sing has more and more often chosen over screaming bloody murder while running circles around the restaurant. 

Ignoring the guilt that comes with shirking his studying, Yut-Lung deliberately reminds himself once more of the holiday occasion and lets his thoughts run freely on the page with only minimal difficulty. A rectangular house forms before him, then four figures stood cheerily beside the residence – Shorter and his family.

The morning draws to a close when Yut-Lung raises his head to see a crowd of customers being shooed out the door, Shorter’s mother wishing each and every one a happy New Year but nevertheless firm in locking the door behind them. She turns around with a sigh, announcing to herself and the few still left within Chang Dai:

“There’s that! And now to clean everything up… _Nadia!_ ”

“Yes, Ma,” she answers after a sluggish beat.

“Go fetch your brother and whichever cousins and aunts you can find. They should be coming over soon enough, but a reminder won’t hurt.”

Nadia replies with a second affirmative, reaching for the phone to key in a series of numbers in quick succession, before half-heartedly drawling into the handset.

Yut-Lung watches this sight curiously, making eye contact with the both of them as Nadia drones a greeting to whichever relative is on the phone with her.

“You don’t have to help, we have plenty of hands already,” Shorter’s mother smiles.

Yut-Lung nods. 

He gets up from his seat eventually, distracted by the comings and goings of the adults (and teenagers) nearby. No longer able to resist the glittery decorations clutched in Shorter’s hands, Yut-Lung trails after the older boy, asking as many questions as Shorter will permit.

“Where are you putting that?”  
“Is that glitter on your shirt?”  
“Can I help?”

Shorter thrusts the gaudy piece of cardboard at him. “Hold onto this for me, thanks.” He brushes his palms together, releasing an ungodly amount of glitter onto the floor and then onto his shirt when he starts picking at it.

“Why is there so much glitter?”

Shorter groans. “Ma likes them. And because she got a whole bunch of these for real cheap a few years back so now we’re stuck with them forever. You’d think all the glitter’d come off over time but –” He punctuates his complaint with a sneeze, and Yut-Lungs holds the red-and-gold decoration a little further away from himself, having unconsciously cradled it to his chest.

He has to admit it looks nice, admiring the cascading rain of glitter that follows every shake. He pauses when Shorter starts to say something. As it turns out, he has been directed to a specific patch of wall nearly a good metre above him, and Yut-Lung stares helplessly back at the older boy for a few seconds before Shorter takes the decoration back with a peeved expression.

“Right. You can, uh, go – I’m sure Ma can find something for you to do…”

Yut-Lung enters the kitchen under Shorter’s direction, only to emerge less than a minute later, Shorter’s mother behind him to loudly chastise her son.

“You _know_ how dangerous the kitchen is, there’s a reason why I told you two to stay outside – not that I’m angry at you, Yut-Lung,” she adds with a smile before hurling a choice few reminders at a paling Shorter.

“Oops.”

 

They work something out in the end, Yut-Lung following Shorter around the restaurant without getting under his feet and holding onto things whenever they are handed to him. A paper-wrapped stick of Blu-Tak; rolled-up posters; a bag of chips when Shorter starts getting peckish.

Yut-Lung licks barbeque-flavoured powder off his fingers.

A reminder from Shorter’s mother to _stop eating so many snacks! There will be a lot of food tonight!_ has Yut-Lung putting down the chips then picking them back up at Shorter’s command. 

“What kind of food will there be?” He asks.

Shorter takes great excitement in changing the subject from detailing the annoying relatives who will be making an appearance (Yut-Lung listening in sympathy), to reeling off an endless list of every edible thing that is to grace the Wong dinner table. Or tables, plural, since they had been tasked just prior with figuring out how to arrange a dozen or so circular tables into one massive, functioning centrepiece. 

It’s nothing glamorous, each tabletop covered in plastic sheeting and topped off with as many bowls and plates the kitchen can supply. Yut-Lung catches glimpses of clear plastic and melamine and a stack of matching ceramic plates. Nothing like the elaborately painted and patterned tableware that is present within the Lee household on a daily basis, or the even more intricate creations that only appear during New Year’s. Yut-Lung remembers tracing a finger along the textured crest of a golden dragon that wound its way around the entirety of his bowl.

But those formalities would feel out of place in the homely restaurant he is currently standing in, just as Yut-Lung feels an outsider in every family event he has had to attend.

He fiddles with the plastic sheeting securely tied to each table leg as Shorter takes an extra-long break, lounging on a throne of stacked chairs.

“When’s the food gonna be ready?” He groans, as Yut-Lung stares up at the clock and tries to figure out how many more minutes of waiting they have. Somewhere past a hundred, he approximates. 

“When are your relatives arriving?”

Shorter lets out another fatal-sounding noise. “Ugh, don’t remind me. Did I tell you about the uncle who farts all the time? And the grandma who –”

Yut-Lung nods patiently. Nadia, walking briskly past them to apparently fetch something for her mother, sounds a little less patient.

“They’re the ones funding your entire existence, _remember_. If you didn’t help us get money every New Year’s, Ma wouldn’t even keep you around.”

“Hey!” Shorter wobbles on his throne as he furiously twists to glare at Nadia. “Same with _you_! How’d she even keep you around for sixteen years?”

Nadia sticks her tongue out. “She likes me better than you.” Having found what she was looking for, she heads back to the kitchen, leaving Shorter a fuming mess.

“…Did she really mean that?” Yut-Lung asks tentatively.

Shorter blows a loud raspberry. “ _She’s_ just scared ‘cause she can’t handle the truth that I’m gonna be way better than her when I get older. Like, waitress who?” He puffs his chest out. “I’m gonna be the biggest mob boss Chinatown’s ever seen.”

“Cool!” Yut-Lung knows his eldest brother is also the boss of something important, thought he isn’t sure what exactly. Anyway, Shorter’s dream job already sounds better than whatever unpleasant business his family is involved in. 

“…So I dunno why I gotta help out around the restaurant all the time,” Shorter whines, though his stream of complaints don’t stop him from eventually hopping down from the stack of chairs and reaching for the nearest, and final, pile of decorations.

Yut-Lung gets up as well. “Why?”

“Because there’s gonna be hell to pay if I don’t, that’s why!” Shorter shakes a bundle of patterned cloth in aggression and glitter showers to the floor.

 

Even as the lengthy list of chores appear to be dwindling to a close, Shorter’s mother continues to find tasks for them to do – or more specifically, for Shorter to do. And first on the list: to sweep up every single shimmering byproduct of their less-than-professional decorating. Yut-Lung props his foot up to peer at the glitter caked into the grooves of his soles.

As soon as his mother is out of earshot, Shorter lets out a thunderous groan. The broom he thumps against the ground stirs up a smattering of glitter.

And as if to make matters worse, Sing comes screaming in right after, having been dropped off by a tall man Yut-Lung doesn’t recognise. 

He nods at Shorter. “Hey. Was just passing by.”

Shorter nods back. “Thanks, dude.”

As soon as the man disappears back outside, the politely reserved expression on Shorter’s face twists into horrified disbelief. “Look at him! He’s just... _kicking_ glitter everywhere!”

Yut-Lung turns to see that Sing is indeed going at the glitter like it’s nobody’s business. There really isn’t enough on the ground to kick around, but the boy seems to find fun in scuffing his feet where the glitter sparkles the brightest as he does laps around the restaurant.

“Sing!” Shorter yelps, brandishing the broom. “You sit your ass down _right now!_ ”

“No!!” Sing screeches back twice as loud.

Yut-Lung takes a hesitant step back as Sing races past him and Shorter looks ready to thwack the younger boy right across the head with his new weapon.

“You can’t kill me!” His voice trails off as Sing tears off into the corridor that leads upstairs.

Yut-Lung watches the entire scene in silence, shooting a glance at the equally mute Shorter, who makes to follow Sing before stopping himself.

He shakes his head with a sigh. “We should just… get back to work. Someone’ll take care of him.” Shorter sounds uncertain, but he dutifully sets his broom back down.

According to Shorter, there shouldn’t be anything for Sing to do upstairs what with the locked door to their apartment, but the kid remains a mystery until later into the day. Yut-Lung times his reappearance to the rich smell of deep-fried food coming from the kitchen. His own stomach growls in interest but cannot compare to a screeching from upstairs that has them both turning their heads.

In a replica of their first day of meeting, a chanting of ‘Food! Food! Food!’ precedes Sing as he races towards the kitchen, soon to be thrown back outside by a firm hand.

“Hey, Sing!” Shorter sounds strained. “You like drawing, right? Why don’t you kiddos sit down quietly for _several_ hours while your big bro here does some other shit?”

Sing pauses to squint in suspicion, but Shorter is quick to rustle up some paper and pens and tug Sing to the nearest table. Surprisingly, he sits without much complaint. 

Shorter shoves a pen into Sing’s little fist. “Here you go! Now have fun please and thank you.”

“I can pick up a pen myself!” Sing protests, but remains otherwise quiet as he fiddles with the pen and gets comfortable on the stool. The plastic sheeting they’d neatly laid out rustles under his palms but he thankfully does not make to tear it up.

“Works wonders,” Shorter whispers loudly, still in amazement after the dozenth time seeing Sing doing anything in almost-peace. After a moment, he beckons Yut-Lung towards the table as well. “You can keep him company, right? Okay, thanks so much.”

He runs off without another word, and Yut-Lung turns to look at the scattered pens and paper in front of him. He’s not in the mood to doodle again, unlike Sing who is always quick to bring pen to paper without hesitation.

The younger boy is mumbling under his breath, and distracted, Yut-Lung gives up the pretence of drawing on his own sheet of paper to peer in Sing’s direction.

“What are you drawing?”

“Big dog.” Sing scratches his pen along what could be the curl of a tail.

“Oh?”

He nods. “Yeah. He’s got a cool jacket –” this is punctuated with a forceful dotting of buttons, “ – and this is his knife.”

“Like Shorter’s knife?” The wicked curve of metal that extends impossibly across the page from the dog’s strangely humanoid fist looks nothing like the sleek tapered form of Shorter’s blade, but Yut-Lung can’t admit to having seen a great number of knives in his lifetime. 

“His knife’s lame.” Sing’s tongue sticks out as he goes over the lines on his page.

“Is it?”

An emphatic nod. “I’m gonna get a way cooler one when I’m old enough.”

“How old?” Sing still has a many years of waiting to get to Shorter’s age, and Yut-Lung wonders as to how violent his impatient outburst will be. He cringes.

“Five!” Sing shoves a corresponding five stubby fingers into Yut-Lung’s paling face. If Sing’s four right now, then that means…

“Which is… a few months,” he crows, having given up on counting on those same fingers ( _’Janu-rary…’_ ).

“Five?” Yut-Lung repeats, aghast. “But that’s so young!”

He can confirm – the five year old him had lived in laughable naiveté, enough that Yut-Lung now wants to strangle the little devil for not coming to terms with reality sooner.

“No! It’s not!” Sing yells defensively; his aggression is a little diminished by the fact he’s still partially focused on drawing a smiley face where the dog’s head should be. A wobbly line crinkles in an innocent smile up at both of them.

“Yes it is!”

“You take that back!” Sing pouts, “‘m _not_.”

Yut-Lung distinctively remembers saying the exact same thing to Shorter, and hopes his own petulance was nowhere near as ridiculous as Sing currently sounds.

“Yes you are!”

“Am _not!_ ”

A curious Nadia passing by interrupts their pissing contest. “Are you guys arguing, or just talking?”

Sing wails. “He says I’m a baby!” 

She snorts loudly and walks away. “You’re both babies the two of you.”

“Hey!”

“That’s not true,” Yut-Lung says in self-assurance. “I’m two years older, so I have lived for one and a _half_ times longer than you.”

Sing makes a markedly confused sound, shrugs, and goes back to his dog portrait. Satisfied at having establishing his superiority, Yut-Lung fiddles at the scattered materials on their table, shredding the newspaper into little squares in his boredom. He’s never had the opportunity to do such a thing back home, not with the strict expectations of sons and heirs and respectable young men, but no one here had responded negatively to Sing doing such a thing – except for Shorter, when he found newspaper shreds in his hair.

Tongue peeking out from his mouth in concentration, he doesn’t notice the first swarm of Shorter’s relatives that enters until a child nearly loud enough to rival Sing joins them at their table. Yut-Lung turns in bewilderment to see a group of strangers, some with a family resemblance, others not, crowd towards the kitchen to greet a stifled-looking Shorter and the rest of his family.

“What are you doing?” The new kid asks, but Yut-Lung doesn’t have a chance to answer when he notices a few of the adults gesturing in their direction.

“Whose children are those? Ah-Mun, you didn’t say anything about these two!”

Shorter’s mother laughs, more carefree than Yut-Lung hears during her stressed hours of running the restaurant. “No, no – they’re two of Shorter’s friends. The right age to get along with Yan Yan, I think.”

The other woman sounds equally overjoyed. “Perfect!”

From the conversation, Yut-Lung quickly realises Yan Yan must be the girl sitting opposite them, or rather, kneeling on the stool as she reaches for the papers piled in the centre of the table. He lets out a tentative ‘hello’ and wonders how many more children are to join them at their smaller side table – the number of seats points to quite a few. 

Surprisingly, she ignores his greeting in favour of loudly crumpling up the paper, and Yut-Lung barely has time to even think about being offended before a paper projectile comes hurtling his way. He ducks out of the way with a yelp. Sing, unluckily still distracted, gets the next one to the face.

“HEY!”

Yut-Lung sneaks away from the table before he’s counted as another casualty of their paper-throwing war.

Not long after, the table has filled up to at least ten children, having just been joined by a rambunctious pair of twins. Yut-Lung heads back as soon as he sees Shorter make an appearance, this time with a pair of circular red boxes in hand. From experience, he knows they have been filled with sunflower seeds and a variety of assorted snacks.

“Candy!” Sing screeches.

…And candy, apparently?

His questions are soon resolved when Shorter whips the lids off with a lazy flourish and backs away (but not without grabbing a few handfuls for himself) before he gets swarmed by hungry children. Their parents and other relatives number a good two dozen, mostly sat around the tables in the bustling Chang Dai front room. But judging from the remaining empty stools – Yut-Lung counts these under his breath – another dozen are yet to arrive before they can expect dinner. 

His stomach gives a little grumble, and Yut-Lung turns to the appetizers set out in front of them. Expecting a plain array of toasted seeds and dried fruits, his jaw drops at the colourful sight before him, soon to be demolished by the crowd sitting alongside him. Tentatively, Yut-Lung reaches for the white, paper-wrapped candy that he recognises while eyeing the other colourful packages.

He recognises some of the words, if not the packaging – haw flakes, something containing coconut, hard ginger candy…

Sing beside him has already worked his way through a hefty handful of candies if the shredded packaging next to him is any indication, and the other kids at their round table are surrounded by similar piles.

Unwrapping his own candy, Yut-Lung lets creamy milk nougat and delicate rice paper melt on his tongue and is hit with the sudden overwhelming urge to move into Chang Dai and stay forever, even if the rabble around him is starting to grind on the ears.

Sing is silent for once, working at the taffy that has glued his teeth together.

 

As the darkness grows outside, more and more of the seats are filled until the adults’ table is a thriving hub of activity and the children’s table, a smaller replica made up of only two tables, is packed with everyone under fifteen. Including Shorter, who eyes Nadia sitting with their parents with begrudging acceptance.

“It’s her first time sitting over there. While we have to get the shitty stools and kiddy plates…”

The plastic stools beneath them do look older and a little more roughed up, but Yut-Lung hadn’t noticed before Shorter made the comment. 

“Because you’re not old enough yet,” Yut-Lung states simply.

“Yeah. Sucks.” He grumbles, despite being far from the oldest at their table. 

As Shorter quickly forgets his grumbling to impress assorted cousins and family friends, Yut-Lung has also realised that, far from babysitting Sing, the youngest kids are left to their own devices while his peers of similar age take up the serious matter of discussing the food and whether a certain adult man sitting a ways away from them is wearing a bald cap or not. 

“Why would he _want_ to be bald?” Yut-Lung asks amongst bites of deliciously stir-fried noodles, to incite only more impassioned debate. 

The food – a generous spread covering nearly the entire table in smaller portions to mirror the larger table behind him – and constant, heated chatter is enough to distract Yut-Lung from the fact that the clock on the wall is ticking later and later into the evening, or that Shorter and his peers have monopolised one corner of the table to discuss their more grown-up matters. He catches a glimpse of Shorter pulling a funny face, but the urge to join in is soon whisked away by the curious investigation of a curled up caterpillar found in someone’s steamed bok choy.

There would never be anything of the sort in the Lee household, not with the veritable swarm of staff manning the kitchens. Yut-Lung has seen them at work once or twice – his mother had befriended several in her time there.

With the blunt end of his chopstick, he pokes at the little green coil as the others are doing and listens attentively to the one kid giving a dramatic retelling of nearly ingesting a little extra protein.

“It was nowhere near your mouth!” Someone interrupts, and Yut-Lung can’t help but snort in laughter. 

There are no more insect-related incidents for the rest of the night, but the conversation flows easily enough that Yut-Lung doesn’t realise the time despite having set his bowl and chopsticks aside a fair while ago.

He sits up at the sound of several stools being pushed aside as people get up to leave, then hears Shorter’s mother clap her hands and announce to the children’s table at large:

“Did you kids have fun? I’m sorry, but it’s nearly about time to leave.”

The statement is met with various groans and wide yawns, and Yut-Lung looks around in dismay as one kid who had just been talking to him stands up to run to her parents, then another, then another until the table is nearly empty. He swivels in his seat to watch the crowd of adults thin as they bid each other farewell, Shorter’s mother offering hugs and his father handshakes as they make their way around the restaurant. 

As the restaurant slowly empties, Yut-Lung spies Shorter and Nadia loitering to one side and runs over to join them. He supposes Sing should be beside him, but the kid in question is buried somewhere within the crowd.

Shorter nods at him. “Oh, hey. Was just getting Nadia to tell me how great the adult table is an’ all.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Nadia quickly amends. The long suffering sigh she releases is proof enough. “Like, would _you_ want to be stuck at a table with all our relatives and have to listen to them talk about boring shit while you can’t fall asleep?”

Shorter shrugs. “What you get for being old, I guess.”

“You know they don’t even have any candy in their boxes? Not that I wanted to steal some from you kids.” Nadia complains to the sound of Shorter chuckling.

It would sound pretty bad, Yut-Lung has to agree, if he hadn’t survived the past few years of Lee family celebrations. He thinks about the taste of hard candy melting on his tongue and can’t help but ask:

“Is there any more candy?”

“Probably not – this is a once a year kinda thing,” Nadia grumbles, while Shorter is quick to offer an alternative idea.

“Dunno, but you could go see if Sing’s hidden any down his pants.”

“Sing –” Yut-Lung feels his eyebrows rise and gives the room a brief scan, more curious about what chaos Sing’s getting up to than any hidden candy he might have on him.

“Gross.” Nadia declares, and Yut-Lung has to agree.

He loiters for a further few minutes, unwilling to leave as the sibling pair continue their previous conversation. But when even the pavement outside has emptied of guests and Shorter’s parents come back inside to clean up, the clock on the wall slaps him in the face with its undeniable truth – that it’s closer to midnight than his usual bedtime.

He finally spots Sing, curled up asleep in one corner, and the sluggishness that drags at his limbs is enough evidence to Yut-Lung that he should have been tucked into bed at least a good hour or so ago.

“I – I should go home too…”

“Are you sure?” Shorter’s mother asks kindly. “Sing’s staying over, and I’m sure there’s more than enough room for the two of you to sleep upstairs.”

“O-Oh, um –” His previous determination stutters to a halt as Yut-Lung glances between the front door and the corridor that leads upstairs. Cold and dark as it is outside, the last thing he wants to do is leave Chang Dai. He worries at his lip in hesitation.

“I – I…”

“You have spare blankets in your room, right Shorter?”

Shorter nods and is quickly shooed upstairs to prepare them while Nadia hefts a sleeping Sing into her arms and dutifully troops upstairs after her brother.

He desperately wants to stay, but their apartment is looking more and more like a fanciful dream while the front door is the reality he has to face, even as Shorter’s father begins drawing down the metal shutter to close the restaurant.

“No, I – !” The exclamation is squeezed from his chest, and Yut-Lung continues despite the worried expression forming on Shorter’s mother’s face. “I need to go home I… I can’t stay so late.”

“Well, if you insist…” She gestures at her husband to leave the shutter as it is. “You be careful out there, okay? Goodnight, then.”

Yut-Lung nods, darts another longing look at the cosy interior of restaurant – still a mess from the evening’s festivities but infinitely more comforting than any sparkling-clean room back at the mansion – and runs out into the evening air before reluctance can fully stop him in his tracks.

“Bye bye!” He remembers to shout, before taking off at a light jog, not wanting to dawdle on the midnight streets of Chinatown nor sprint at such a pace he trips over himself once again.

He reaches home safely, only to quickly realise that was the least of his worries.

 

There is no welcoming committee at the door, aside from the mandatory guards on night shift, one of whom slightly inclines his head at the sight of Yut-Lung tip-toeing through the front door. He brings a cautioning finger to his lips in a universal sign of silence – forgetting for a moment that the guards report to personnel higher up in the ranks than him – before tip-toeing the rest of the way to his bedroom.

The sight of his plush bed is enough to bring any tired six-year old to his knees, and Yut-Lung trips on the edge to let himself lie comfortably face-down for a moment before discipline pulls his limbs upright to stumble to the bathroom. He passes out properly underneath the duvet upon towelling off.

Come morning – a little later than he’s used to, given the late night – the mansion is still and quiet as if night has yet to pass. Yut-Lung blinks up at the ceiling, rubs sleep from his eyes, and is hit with a deluge of memories from the past day that have him wanting to bury himself deeper beneath the blankets at his own recklessness.

_At least big brother hasn’t…_

He espies the note almost immediately after pulling himself from the warm tangle of blankets, a crisp white envelope slid under his door sometime in the early morning. A familiar scrawl of characters details his own name, and Yut-Lung gingerly picks up the stiff paper and pulls a creased slip of paper from under the open flap of the envelope.

It’s a single line of text, nothing elaborate enough to fit the embossed stationery, but impactful nevertheless in its delivery.

[Please be at my office at 3.]

Yut-Lung swallows a nervous gulp.

 

Having woken up late, he eats only half of his usual breakfast before remembering to dash off to a class he’s already aeons-late for. Panting, Yut-Lung bursts into the library with a satchel of notebooks slung haphazardly off one shoulder, only to find the desks empty. The apology sitting on the tip of his tongue melts away as he surveys the scene in confusion. With a sudden thump, his bag slides off his shoulder and Yut-Lung tugs it along the ground by its straps as he nears the usual desk, sitting down and darting another uncomprehending look around the room.

There’s no disputing the fact he’s late, but there should be at least another thirty minutes left on the clock. Without his tutor, Yut-Lung sits in nervous silence for another ten minutes before accepting defeat and taking out the materials for his next class. 

Maybe if he gets in a further twenty minutes of study his previous missteps will be pardoned – even as he conjured up the thought, Yut-Lung knows there are inevitable consequences awaiting him. The note is proof enough of that.

He fumbles through a relevant textbook with shaky fingers and waits.

Nobody appears after the clock slowly ticks past ten. Part of him had already seen that coming, and Yut-Lung gives it another few minutes before packing up and shelving the textbooks he’d barely been able to concentrate on.

The library remains empty and silent as he shuts the door behind him and ponders what to do next.

What feasible options he has are few in number and, cowed by the note haunting him from his waking moment, Yut-Lung resorts to taking an armful of his favourite toys from the playroom to scatter them all over his bed where he plays in relative silence. The bedroom door is closed behind him.

Lunch arrives not long after, and with the dawn of the afternoon comes reality. He is nervously checking his appearance in the en suite at two, and with half an hour to spare Yut-Lung stands terrified outside the imposing redwood door of his brother’s office. For the third time, he falters in an attempt to knock.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Wang-Lung opens the door for him.

“Do you need a servant to open doors for you?” He sits back down at his desk, thumbing at the monitor beside him which shows a grainy image of the corridor outside. It switches to a view of the kitchen from overhead.

“N-No.”

“Well, at least you’re punctual.”

With no extra seat in the room available to him, Yut-Lung stands before the intimidating wall of a desk, clutching nervously at the hem of his shirt. His brother leans back in his seat.

“Stop fidgeting. You look like a child.”

Stiffening, Yut-Lung lowers his arms to hang rigidly at either side and waits for whatever is to come. Wang-Lung takes his sweet time, rolling a pen between his fingers before jotting down a note or two in silence. He shoves the papers aside eventually, and regards Yut-Lung with a piercing stare.

“Do you know why I called you here today?” He continues, without giving Yut-Lung a chance to answer, “I’m a busy man – I’d rather not deal with these trivialities. And they should have _remained_ trivial, if it weren’t for your little stunt yesterday.”

“S-Sorry.”

He gives no sign of hearing. “If _some_ of us can put in the effort to fly over from Europe, from Hong Kong, you’d think it was an important event, no?”

Yut-Lung nods once.

“You’ve made it clear time and time again that you don’t give a _damn_ about your place in the family, and I think it’s only fair to relieve you of this responsibility.”

Despite the serious atmosphere, Yut-Lung can’t help but utter a small noise of confusion. He’d expected a tongue-lashing, and not this calm and calculated delivery. Wang-Lung almost sounds bored.

“Be grateful that I’ve decided to offer you food and lodging for now. We’ll decide further matters later. You can leave now.”

He steps back outside after a dazed second, still thoroughly confused as to what any of his brother’s words had meant.

Yut-Lung finds out soon enough.

 

Barely twenty minutes after leaving his room, Yut-Lung returns to a thrown-open door and the sight of two maids packing his belongings into boxes and stripping the sheets from the bed.

“W-What’s happening?”

One of the maids looks up from her tasks. “You’re being moved to a new room, young master.”

“Huh?”

She spares him a pitying look for the bewilderment splashed across his face, but quickly goes back to the job at hand. Yut-Lung watches from a corner as the two women clear his room with rapid efficacy. He knows somewhere in the back of his mind that this is connected to the talk just delivered by his brother, but the kid in Yut-Lung wants to complain and whine until they return his room – _their_ room, jointly shared with his mother – to him.

One maid offers him a no-nonsense reply. “It’s what we’ve been told to do – so just you wait there, young sir, and we’ll show you to your new room.”

It doesn’t take long, compared to the waiting he had done just this morning. Yut-Lung watches as four boxes of his belongings are loaded onto a cart and steered towards the corridor. The maid gestures for him to follow, and he turns away from the sight of his room, stripped bare with the exception of furniture.

“W-What are they going to do to my room?”

“I heard it’s going to be a guest room, young sir,” the maid answers, gaze focused on the heavy baggage she directs down the various corridors. Without bumping into anyone or anything, the journey to rooms unknown is made quickly and Yut-Lung takes long strides to keep up.

They stop at an elevator Yut-Lung has never used before, and he watches curiously as the large metal doors slide open to reveal a large interior unlike the small private one he’s set foot into once to access other floors. He normally just uses the stairs.

“In here. We’re just going down a few floors.” She presses the appropriate button, and Yut-Lung stays still beside the trolley as the doors creak shut and the entire contraption begins to descend.

The basement level, he recalls, houses the kitchens, storage rooms, and other unknown quarters he’s never given much thought about. Including his new room, apparently.

They wheel back into motion once more, soon stopping before a small wooden door that sits beside a half dozen other identical ones set into the walls.

Yut-Lung glances up at the maid in confirmation, and she nods.

“Welcome to the servants’ quarters – though don’t worry, we won’t disturb you too much.”

He nods feebly, following her into the room to see a small bed tucked against one wall, and a desk and bookshelf sitting against the other. There are no windows – the space for one instead replaced by a scenic painting – which makes sense. He doubts there’s much to see underground.

“S-So I… but _why_?” 

She shakes her head, an apologetic expression on her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why. This is just what I was asked to do – now, do you want to help me unpack?”

Between the two of them, Yut-Lung’s clothes, toys, and other belongings are quickly distributed amongst the various cabinets and shelves within the room. The maid bids him a hurried farewell, quoting another task that needs attending to a few floors up and tells Yut-Lung that someone else will come by with bedsheets and blankets.

In the meantime, Yut-Lung sits down on the bare mattress and contemplates his new room.

 

After a poor night’s rest getting used to the new room, Yut-Lung wakes to yet another envelope, this one held in the hand of a maid who seems somewhat familiar and introduces herself as Grace. 

“A letter for you, sir, and when you are ready we have to head out for some errands.”

_What errands,_ he wonders silently. The letter offers an explanation. The succinct and impersonal statement from his brother is to inform him of a public school he’ll be attending in one week’s time, now that his tutoring fees are no longer paid for by the family. The maid will explain to him the details.

As he stretches and sits nervously upright, Grace nods politely to excuse herself. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

The much smaller room is still foreign to him, and Yut-Lung fumbles through the drawers under his bed for a few minutes before finding where he packed away his folded clothes. There’s no bathroom connected to his room, either, and he steps outside to nearly bump into Grace.

“Where is the bathroom?”

As she leads him there, a farther walk than he’s used to for such a simple necessity, Yut-Lung takes the opportunity to pepper her with more questions until he finally has a loose grasp on the alien situation he’s been thrown into.

A few streets away lies an elementary school – free, government funded – and apparently to join a first grade class he needs a number of necessary items. A shopping trip, Grace informs him with a crinkling smile, within budget.

It could be fun, Yut-Lung supposes, though the concept of public school is still a large alien unknown in his head. In between bites of breakfast he wonders how strict the tutors will be, and if he’ll bump into anyone from that previous dinner at Chang Dai. If his brother is happy now that Yut-Lung has done as he commanded – that seems a little less plausible, and glances back down at his bowl from where half-thought out daydreams had captured his attention.

He gives a small shrug when Grace suggests that they leave soon after he finishes, and she makes a pleased expression.

She’s chattier than some of the other servants, not as averse to talking to a six-year old who doesn’t always talk back. However, rather than helping ease the process, this only makes their trip more of an overloaded whirlwind for the senses, Yut-Lung struggling to keep up as she reads from a list of what he needs for school. They squeeze through yet another crowd, this time to appraise yet another selection of second-hand uniforms.

“Not enough in here that we can buy whichever,” she nods at an envelope from which she produced the list initially.

“Oh.”

It doesn’t feel like the few shopping trips he’d had with his mother, touring a few calmer stores to pick up various bits and pieces for the family. He tucks himself further against Grace’s side to avoid the swarming crowd, perking up when she mutters an exclamation. Yut-Lung turns wide eyes onto the old woman manning the stand before them and the item of clothing held in the maid’s hands.

A friendly voice addresses the two of them. “Is your son starting school next year?” 

Yut-Lung stiffens, too slow to react as Grace laughs in embarrassment. “Oh, he’s not my son! And no, he’s starting this month.”

“Oh, a little late,” the woman nods slowly. “But that’s no issue – are you looking forward to it?.”

Yut-Lung nods meekly and turns back to Grace in apprehensive silence. _Late?_ He’s not too sure he likes the sound of that, and with every passing second he’s wishing for the trip to be over. They still have a great number of things to purchase, though, and Yut-Lung stands still as she holds various clothing items up to his front and inspects each one for a good many seconds.

“These will do,” she nods eventually, handing over a handful of bills as their purchases are bundled into a plastic bag. “Onto the next stall, then!” She offers a little smile as Yut-Lung drags his feet behind her.

He gets a small bag to hold onto in distraction partway through, concentrating instead on swinging the bag in small back-and-forths as he troops diligently after Grace. This is how he nearly misses the fact that they’ve exited the busy marketplace to head back home, and a weight slides off his shoulders at the realisation.

A necessary ‘thank you’ falls from his lips as Grace sets most of his new belongings on his desk and takes his new pieces of clothing away to be laundered, though not before telling him he’s free for the day.

“I’ll be back in a week to help take you to school, but otherwise it’s goodbye for now, young sir. Though we may see each other around here occasionally.”

He returns her cheery wave and sits at his desk in silence for a moment after the door closes. Habit would dictate that he run off to Chang Dai now, but then Yut-Lung contemplates his brother’s every cryptic decision and wonders if hiding in his room is the preferable choice.

But his quarters are tiny now, and the bed no longer makes a spacious play area for what few toys he has stashed away on his shelves. A frustrated wrinkle digs into his forehead as Yut-Lung sprawls on his belly and sends a tired-looking plush cat galumphing around his pillow.

At dinner, his brothers have nothing to say to him except for a snide Hua-Lung interjecting with a sudden mention of how good the food was two nights before. Yut-Lung knows his brother’s never enjoyed large family gatherings, just as he himself.

 

Another day later, the fresh threat of moving rooms and new schools has faded the slightest bit and the itch that is Chang Dai returns with full force as Yut-Lung desperately wonders what Shorter is getting up to, if Nadia has given the slightest thought as to where he might have disappeared.

And no longer bogged down by tedious tutors, Yut-Lung dashes back outside as soon as he finishes breakfast, though not without a cautious glance up the stairs in case his eldest brother makes an appearance. 

Shorter is not yet awake, but Nadia lends him an ear when Yut-Lung announces his arrival with a, “Do you want to hear something scary that happened?”

She looks a little perplexed at the story, though the expression fades somewhat as he tacks on further sentences in a haphazard explanation of all the details he can remember.

“So you’re starting school? Cool.”

“ _Is_ it cool?”

“Could be.”

Yut-Lung nods in newfound understanding. “So now I don’t know if I should come to Chang Dai…”

Nadia shrugs. “Eh, sounds like you’re just grounded for skipping out on that whole New Year’s thing, which is totally understandable. Just give it time and they’ll be chill.”

“Oh, okay.”

He supposes Wang-Lung _has_ been ‘chill’ as of recently, if his bored demeanour is to be taken as a positive. Nadia gently shoos him aside as customers approach from behind and Yut-Lung takes the cue to retreat back to the regular table, then go investigate a still-sleeping Shorter after a bored moment.

“It’s unlocked!” Nadia calls after him.

As expected, Shorter is still buried within the nest of his bed as Yut-Lung navigates the flat, silent except for a leaking tap and the faint noises coming from whoever lives above them. He tiptoes around scattered clothing to approach the tuft of black hair sticking out at him, unable to help the giggle that emerges when he thinks of what he is about to do.

Unfortunately, Shorter’s reaction is not as exciting as imagined, and Yut-Lung gives the tuft of hair another tug as Shorter snorts in his sleep.

“Wake up!” He cries, slapping at the blankets. He’s never had to wake another person up before, and if he’s a little too forceful it reflects in Shorter’s response.

“What the fuck?” A mumble emerges, then a pair of squinting eyes. “Why are you in my room?”

“Good morning.”

“‘Least it’s not Sing…” he hears Shorter grumble to himself before turning to face the wall and dragging the blanket back up over his ears. 

“I’m going to take some of your toys,” Yut-Lung announces, to which Shorter grunts in reply.

“Don’t take the gun.”

He doesn’t take the gun, and instead cradles a box of toy cars within his arms to carefully step back downstairs, setting up an elaborate extended family of cars on the table, to the curiosity of a few customers.

When Shorter finally arrives, the largest pickup truck is nearly done giving rides to all the smaller cars. Yut-Lung pauses in his game to follow the older boy to the counter. The first of his questions bounce right off Shorter’s ears, deaf to the world until he receives his breakfast order.

“You were saying?” He asks through a mouthful of piping-hot congee.

“Did you go to school? What’s school like?”

“I told you I’m too lazy to go, remember?”

“Oh.” In his mind, Yut-Lung pushes past the pile of questions that had built up and chews on his bottom lip to think of something else to say.

The foreboding question of _school_ lingers in his mind all the way until a week later, when he dons the uniform for the first time and fiddles with the buttons as his reflection does the same. Grace is to meet him at the kitchen after breakfast, so Yut-Lung carefully goes through the list of items he has to pack for his first day by himself. The cheery note in lively font was sent from his new school, and the list is bordered on either side by an assortment of shapes and numbers.

Nothing as plain as his brother’s correspondences, and Yut-Lung has to squint a little to read the curly letters.

Bag packed, he slings the straps over each shoulder with a little difficulty and runs outside in the hopes that he hasn’t kept anyone waiting too long. The kitchen is just a close walk away, and one of the various servants greets him with a ‘good morning’ and a hot bowl of noodles. They go down with a little more difficulty than usual as Yut-Lung restlessly kicks his feet and steals glances at the clock and the staff as they go about their tasks.

Grace stops by before he finishes, and despite her assurances that they’re in no rush, Yut-Lung hurriedly slurps down the final few mouthfuls before picking his bag up from where it had fallen onto the floor and repositioning it against his back.

“Ready to go?”

His shaky nod is apparently answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there were supposed to be like 2 other main plot points in this chapter but i ended up cramming too many things in here... (and for the sake of posting //smth// after all this time lol)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://swummeng-geys.tumblr.com)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/hashtag_yikes)


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